Hong Kong Freedoms Fade As Security Law Muzzles Dissent

 

FILE PHOTO: Riot police raise a warning flag as they disperse anti-government demonstrators in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is still China's wealthiest, most capitalist city. Its vistas of skyscraper and sea framed by dragon-backed emerald peaks are as stunning as ever.

But a year after Beijing imposed a harsh national security law on the former British colony, the civil liberties that raised hopes for more democracy among many of its 7 million people are fading.

The June 30, 2020, rollout of the law accelerated a rolling back of freedoms promised to Hong Kong when China took over in 1997. That process was punctuated earlier this month with the shutdown of the city's last pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily.

The authorities first came for Apple Daily's outspoken billionaire founder Jimmy Lai. He's in jail serving a 20-month sentence and facing charges of foreign collusion to endanger national security.

Last week, some 500 police officers raided the newspaper's headquarters.

At least seven of its journalists and executives have been arrested and $2.3 million worth of assets linked to the paper frozen, preventing it from paying salaries and other costs. For its final edition, Apple Daily printed a million copies — more than 12 times its usual print run. It sold out to crowds who lined up at newsstands for hours.

Apple Daily's coverage was often “sensationalist,” but it also uncovered corruption and won awards for its investigative reporting, Yuen Chan, a journalist lecturer at the University of London and formerly head of Hong Kong University's journalism school, said in a commentary on online news portal Citizen News.

It also was a “barometer of Hong Kong's press freedom and freedom of expression,” she wrote.

The paper's closure comes as the Chinese Communist Party celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding in Shanghai in 1921 by Mao Zedong and others. Over the last year, the Chinese government has tightened its grip over semi-autonomous Hong Kong following months of anti-government protests that brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets.

The demonstrations against proposed extradition legislation that would have allowed suspects to face trial in mainland Chinese courts sometimes turned violent, and encompassed other demands, including calls for universal suffrage and investigation into police tactics. Now, protesting or publishing anything that might be construed as a violation of the security law can land them in jail in Hong Kong.

Traditionally, the city has been considered one of the most attractive places for expatriates, thanks to its low tax rates and ease of doing business. It's still a major business and financial hub. But some multinational companies have begun relocating their operations and staff. The American Chamber of Commerce says 2 out of 5 expats it surveyed in May were considering leaving the city. The top concern was the national security law.

In private conversations, many in Hong Kong lament the loss of their freedoms, but life goes on. On the weekends, shopping malls are still crowded. People still line up for hours to get seats in popular dim sum and noodle restaurants or take weekend strolls on scenic Victoria Peak. On the surface, daily life hasn't changed much.

What has changed are the special privileges that Hong Kong was promised for a half-century after control of the territory was handed to Beijing on July 1, 1997 — the autonomy of its courts and legal system, civil liberties that included a free press, freedom of speech and the leeway to take to the streets and other public spaces in protest.

With the space for dissent shrinking, the online news platform Stand News said it would remove commentaries published on its site before June, stop its fundraising efforts and stop accepting new subscribers.

With the handover 24 years ago, Hong Kong became a semi-autonomous territory, promised independent economic and legal status under a “one country, two systems” arrangement that led many in the city to expect more, not less democracy despite the Communist Party's lack of tolerance for dissent across the border in the Chinese mainland.

Like millions of others who left the mainland seeking more opportunity in Hong Kong in past decades, 40-something Wang Wai says she migrated there because wages were “in the thousands but in China still in the hundreds.”

“The health care system, education and work to be found in Hong Kong is much better than in China,” said Wang, who is married with two children.

Ever since its days as a hub in Britain's trading of opium from India for silk, tea and porcelain from China, Hong Kong has mainly been about moneymaking. The city flourished in the years after the 1949 Communist Revolution, as industrialists from Shanghai relocated to the colony, bringing what they could of their salvaged fortunes.

After the city's garment and electronics manufacturing moved across the border, back into China, Hong Kong's colonial legacy left it well placed to thrive as a financial center for what has become the world's No. 2 economy. For many in the city, the handover to Beijing was just a welcome switch of flags.

Hong Kong was meant to help lead China's ascent as an economic power, enjoying the best of both East and West, as its first chief executive, shipping tycoon Tung Chee-hwa, often would say. It remains home for scores of billionaire business people and many other wealthy Chinese who have invested in choice property after prospering on the mainland.

Despite the massive pro-democracy protests that paralyzed parts of the city in 2019 and the blows to tourism and trade from the pandemic, the city's stratospheric property market has surged still higher.

Even modest apartments under 100 square meters (1,100 square feet) have more than doubled in price since 1997, said Derek Chan, head of research at real estate firm Ricacorp Properties.

“Even though prices have soared, the wealthy in Hong Kong are still willing to buy property at these prices, making it increasingly inaccessible for regular residents to buy homes,” Chan said.

Such costs have made the city unaffordable for many: the share of Hong Kongers living in poverty has doubled to 1 in 5 since the handover.

Such pressures have added to frustrations as Beijing has tightened the screws.

Even before the handover, China and Britain quarreled over how much democracy Hong Kong should have. When election results made it clear that the public preferred more, Beijing moved to ensure it would stay in control, mandating less.

Hong Kong's last colonial governor, Chris Patten, left the territory declaring that, "Now Hong Kong people are to run Hong Kong."

"That is the promise — and that is the unshakeable destiny," he said as he boarded the Royal Yacht Britannia and sailed away after the handover.

A city of Chinese people accustomed to a free press, rule of law, freedom of assembly had hoped in time to gain more say over how they were governed. Instead, one distant ruler has replaced another.

The weakening of the city's civil liberties is “not a good thing,” said Wang, who moved to Hong Kong from her hometown in southeastern China's Fujian province. “I came to Hong Kong also because it had freedom, and there is rule of law and more democracy. Now it is looking more and more like a city in China." (PTI)

Another Tragedy Raises Ire At Hydro Projects In Himachal Pradesh

 

The Parbati II hydroelectric project in Himachal Pradesh, where 27-year-old Amar Chand was killed recently in an accident (Image: Sumit Mahar)

The village of Palgi is mourning 27-year-old Amar Chand. He died on 21 May in an accident inside a tunnel at the 800 MW Parbati II hydroelectric project (HEP), where he was working. The project is being built in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, in Kullu district, where Palgi village is also located. Three other people died in the same accident; they were from Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh, Darjeeling in West Bengal, and Nepal.

National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC), an Indian government-owned utility, is building the hydropower station. LK Tripathi, the project head, told The Third Pole that a huge “wedge” fell on the victims from the roof of the tunnel during drilling work. “Normally all the wedges are tightly secured with rock anchors and steel girders, and cemented. But it seems this wedge was somewhat loose, which caused the accident.”

District authorities and NHPC have promised compensation. Richa Verma, the top official in Kullu district, has ordered an inquiry into the accident.

Amar’s family remains inconsolable. His brother Roop Chand, 20, said no one had come from NHPC to offer condolences. “We lost our mother young. My father brought us up with great difficulty. We barely survived, with little income from a small farm.”

Amar had been working at the Parbati project for about eight months. He leaves behind a four-month-old child.

Moti Ram Katwal, secretary of the local farmers’ council, said: “These accidents at the HEP site are not new. Not long ago, we lost two other locals who got electrocuted while they were repairing a transmission line at the site.”

ACCIDENT PROMPTS WIDER QUESTIONS

Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of NGO the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, told The Third Pole: “Several such accidents at HEP sites and incidents of loss of lives and property have been happening in the Himalayan region due to landslides, massive soil erosion, illegal muck dumping, slope cutting etc, all triggered by these projects. But there is no central and state authority or monitoring mechanism in place. No punitive action is taken against HEP companies for their negligence.”

In August 2013, the Himachal Pradesh department of power and multipurpose projects passed a notification to create such a monitoring authority, Thakkar pointed out. No such body has yet appeared.

Manshi Asher is a member of Himdhara, a Himachal Pradesh-​based environmental research and action collective. Asher said: “These projects are not financially viable as there are time and cost overruns. Then water depletion during winter, siltation during the monsoon and the impacts of climate change like glaciers receding and irregular rainfall cycle make them a losing proposition in the future. Companies have suffered significant revenue losses from these HEPs over the years.”

But Sreedhar Ramamurthi, a geoscientist who has been working in this region of the Himalayas for three decades, said hydro companies are still making large profits. “After paying loans and liabilities in the first few years, the companies only make a profit thereafter, as they get water as a free raw material.” He gave the example of Jaypee, a private engineering company that sold two hydropower plants – Baspa II (300 MW) and Karcham Wangtoo (1,091 MW) – for 97 billion Indian rupees (USD 1.3 billion) in 2015. “The firm made a huge profit while local people are still suffering.”

India does not need the electricity from the hydro projects, Ramamurthi pointed out. “There is already 25,000 MW of surplus energy. We don’t need to create more energy, especially in the Himalayas.”

LIVELIHOODS WRECKED

There are complaints about hydropower project sites across Himachal Pradesh. Geeta Gyani is the former head of Urni village, close to the Karcham Wangtoo project site. “This project upturned our lives,” Gyani told The Third Pole. “The reckless muck dumping destroyed 32 apple orchards, which people had nurtured like small children. We depended on the orchards for our livelihoods."

“The water flow in the [village] stream was disrupted at many places and the water pipe was broken too. Women had to fetch water from far away for a long time, until we got the pipe repaired with collective labour of youngsters in the village.” She also said that the reverberations from tunnelling have caused many houses to develop cracks.

Jiya Negi, who lives in the Kalpa area of Kinnaur district, described how the 450 MW Shongtong Karchham project affected residents’ livelihoods. The engineering work to the river impacted crops of apples and pine nuts, Negi said, adding, “the plantations were spoiled”.

In 2019, Himdhara, the local NGO, published a report on environmental hazards caused by hydropower in Himachal Pradesh. The report lists four major impacts:

• Geological impacts – triggering of landslides/slope failures leading to damage of roads, farms, houses
• Hydrogeological impacts – drying of springs and underground water sources
• Muck dumping along rivers leading to increased siltation in forests and pastures
• Safety negligence leading to accidents

NO BENEFIT TO RESIDENTS

Anshul Sharma, senior executive engineer at the Himachal Pradesh Directorate of Energy, said the state government’s policy is that companies executing hydro projects must share the benefits with local people for 10 years after commissioning. This includes 1.5% of the profit for the local area development fund and another 1% as cash incentives.

Geeta Gyani from Urni village said the policy remains only on paper. “There are 225 families living here. Those who got no compensation for losses are fighting for it since 2014. Our village continues to be vulnerable. The company did no development work here.”

HYDROPOWER RISKS ACROSS HIMACHAL PRADESH

The risks from hydropower projects extend to the trans-Himalayan part of Himachal Pradesh, the Lahaul and Spiti region, that is geographically part of the Tibetan Plateau. There are 20 hydroelectric projects planned in this region, according to the Indian government’s Central Electricity Authority. The entire region used to be cut off by heavy snowfall every winter. Since the opening of an all-weather road tunnel, it is now connected at all times to the rest of India. Residents fear this will make it easier to build hydropower plants, despite their opposition.

Rigzin Heyreppa is president of Jispa Dam Sangharsh Samiti, a group of residents opposing the Jispa dam project in Lahaul and Spiti. He said: “We have been fighting against Jispa HEP (300 MW) for over a decade. Under this project a 9-km tunnel will go under 14 villages. The blasting and the tunnel will cause immense damage to our houses, agricultural land and environment… The state government should allow us to live in peace and prosper through tourism.”

Seema Sharma (The Third Pole)

Withdraw Cases Lodged Against Farmers For Protest Marches: SKM

 

FILE PHOTO: Farmers listen to a speaker during a protest against the contentious farm bills at Singhu border near Delhi

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) on Sunday demanded the withdrawal of cases registered against farmers during their protest marches on June 26 to mark seven months of their agitation against the Centre's three farm laws.

SKM, the umbrella body of farmer organisations spearheading the agitation, said the Chandigarh Police has booked several farmer leaders on various charges.

Farmers on Saturday marched towards the Raj Bhavans in different states to submit memoranda, addressed to the President, and to Governors to mark seven months of protests against the Centre's three farm laws.

"In Chandigarh, it is reported that FIRs have been filed against several SKM leaders and many other protestors under IPC sections 147, 148, 149, 186, 188, 332 and 353," the SKM said in a statement.

It alleged that after barricading the roads, the "police also resorted to using water cannons and lathicharge on the protestors".

"On top of this kind of undemocratic and authoritarian behaviour, cases are now being filed against SKM leaders. Samyukt Kisan Morcha condemns this and demands that the FIRs be withdrawn immediately and unconditionally," it said.

In many places, farmers were not allowed to even take out rallies to Raj Bhavans and there were detention and lock-ins of SKM leaders, it said.

"SKM condemns this and points out that this itself is an illustration of the failure of democracy and the undeclared emergency that we are going though," it said in the statement.

Noting that cases have been filed against 15 farmers in Hisar who had taken part in a protest against a BJP meeting on June 25, the SKM said the FIRs should be withdrawn immediately.

The farmers started their stir against the contentious farm laws in November 2020 by camping at Singhu border between Delhi and Haryana, besides at Tikri and Ghazipur borders.

The protesting farmers have demanded the withdrawal of the Centre's farm laws and that a new law be made to guarantee minimum support price (MSP) for their crops.

(PTI)

 

George Floyd Murder: Chauvin Sentenced To Over 22 Years

 

With good behavior, Chauvin could serve just two-thirds of any prison sentence, with the remaining third on supervised release

 

Former policeman Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison on Friday for the murder of African American George Floyd, the killing that sparked America's biggest demonstrations for racial justice in decades.

The white, 45-year-old Chauvin gave his "condolences" to the Floyd family in a Minneapolis court, without apologizing, before Judge Peter Cahill handed down a lesser sentence than the 30 years the prosecution had sought.

"This (jail term) is based on your abuse of a position of trust and authority and also the particular cruelty shown to George Floyd," Cahill told Chauvin, who listened impassively.

The decision was read out at the end of a tense hearing in which the court watched a recorded message by Floyd's seven-year-old daughter and heard from Chauvin's mother.

The Floyd family's lawyer called the sentencing a "historic" step towards racial reconciliation in the United States.

"(It) brings the Floyd family and our nation one step closer to healing by delivering closure and accountability," Ben Crump tweeted.

President Joe Biden said: "I don't know all the circumstances that were considered but it seems to me, under the guidelines, that seems to be appropriate."

Civil rights activist Al Sharpton said it sent "a message of accountability," despite being less than what the family wanted.

Chauvin, who has been behind bars since being convicted on three counts of murder and manslaughter two months ago, wore a light gray suit as he learnt his fate following a trial that captivated the world.

He spoke briefly, after declining to testify during his six-week trial.

"I do want to give my condolences to the Floyd family," Chauvin said after removing his face mask.

"At this time due to some additional legal matters at hand, I'm not able to give a full formal statement at this time."

"There's going to be some other information in the future that would be of interest and I hope things will give you some peace of mind," he added.

Before he spoke, Carolyn Pawlenty said her son, Chauvin, was a "good man."

"I have always believed in your innocence and I will never waver from that," she said.

Earlier, the court watched a moving video from the late Floyd's daughter, Gianna Floyd.

"I miss you and I love you," the girl said when asked in the recorded message what she said would say to her father today.

Chauvin and three colleagues arrested Floyd, 46, in May 2020 on suspicion of having passed a fake $20 bill in a store in Minneapolis, a northern city of around 420,000. They handcuffed him and pinned him to the ground in the street.

Chauvin then knelt on the back of Floyd's neck for nearly 10 minutes, indifferent to the dying man's groans and to the pleas of distraught passers-by.

The scene, filmed and uploaded by a young woman, quickly went viral. After weeks of home confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of thousands of people poured onto streets across the country and overseas, to demand an end to racism and police brutality.

It took weeks for the mass demonstrations to taper off, but the debate around the pressing social issues remains vivid in the United States, where Biden has been slow to come up with the police reforms he promised during his campaign.

Minnesota law provides for a minimum sentence of 12.5 years but Floyd's brother, Terrence Floyd, his voice choking, told the court Cahill should hand Chauvin the stiffest term possible.

'PARTICULAR CRUELTY'

"Why? What were you thinking? What was going through your head when you had your knee on my brother's neck?" demanded Floyd, urging Chauvin to explain the reason for the murder.

Cahill said his sentence was "not based on emotion or sympathy," but the law, and in a 22-page sentencing memorandum identified aggravating circumstances that brought a heavier punishment.

They included that Chauvin's offense occurred in front of minors and that he "committed the crime as a group with the active participation of at least three other" officers.

Chauvin's trial was closely followed across the country.

His lawyer said Chauvin had followed police procedures in force at the time and that Floyd's death was due to health problems exacerbated by drug use.

The jurors took less than 10 hours to convict. Their decision was greeted with a huge sigh of relief across the country. Many had feared an acquittal would lead to worse unrest, while others worried that once again a white police officer would get away with what they saw as murder.

With good behavior, Chauvin could serve just two-thirds of any prison sentence, with the remaining third on supervised release.

The defense will appeal the verdict, Nelson has said, citing doubts over the impartiality of some jurors.

On the eve of sentencing, the judge denied the defense's request for a new trial.

Neither will the case end with Chauvin: his three former colleagues will face trial in March 2022 on charges of complicity in homicide.

In parallel, the four men also face federal charges of violating Floyd's constitutional rights. No date has yet been set for that trial.

PM’s Meeting With J&K Leaders ‘Positive’ Step: Karan Singh

 

FILE PHOTO: Former Jammu and Kashmir Governor and Congress leader Karan Singh said statehood must be restored before holding assembly polls in J&K

Describing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with top political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir as a “very positive step”, veteran Congress leader and former J&K governor Karan Singh on Friday said statehood must be restored before holding Assembly polls there and asserted that such a move would go a long way in helping to “heal the wounds” of the people.

Mr. Singh, the son of Maharaja Hari Singh, who signed the terms of Kashmir’s accession in 1947, also said his personal opinion is that prima facie the revocation of special status under Article 370 seems “irreversible” but asserted that the matter was before the Supreme Court and it must be decided by the top court.

In an interview with PTI, the last Sadr-e-Riyasat and first governor of the erstwhile state also demanded that the Centre must provide a “financial-cum-developmental package” to the people whose livelihoods were badly affected during the last two years following the Centre’s move to bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories and revoke its special status.

His remarks come a day after Modi held talks with top political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir and told them that the Centre’s priority is to strengthen grassroots democracy there for which delimitation has to happen quickly for polls to be held.

Reacting to the Prime Minister’s meeting with 14 political leaders of Jammu and Kashmir, including four former chief ministers, Mr. Singh said, “I definitely think it is a very positive step. First of all, because everybody was involved and people who once were discarded as anti-national, they all came -- National Conference and People's Democratic Party both.”

He added, “I believe everybody spoke their mind very frankly and the Prime Minister listened very attentively to everybody. Three and a half hours of the meeting was there and my own view is that it is a very positive move because something was needed to break the ice.”

The whole situation after the change of status had become “ossified politically”, Mr. Singh said, adding that the meeting was the start of a political process that is to be welcomed.

Asked about the demand of most of Jammu and Kashmir leaders of restoration of statehood, he said it was a unanimous view because after being in special status for 70 years, to suddenly be demoted to a Union Territory is “something nobody in Jammu and Kashmir has appreciated”.

“So statehood is a universal demand, the question is timing. Now as I understand the situation, the first step now is delimitation. The delimitation commission is already working, they should submit their report very soon. After delimitation then the next step is elections. My own view is that...we should have elections as a full state,” Mr. Singh said.

He asserted that full statehood for Jammu and Kashmir should definitely be restored before assembly elections because if it goes to polls as a Union territory and then becomes a state, that would not make any sense because the situations are different with difference in status.

“As soon as possible, we should get statehood, I mean if we get it tomorrow there is nothing like it but in any case when we fight the next elections we must fight them as a full-fledged state,” the 90-year-old leader said.

Mr. Singh also lamented that it was a “strange irony” that his father signed the instrument of accession for the whole state and “today we are having to fight for statehood”.

Asked if statehood could reduce “dil ki doori’ — a term used by Prime Minister Modi at the meeting, Mr. Singh said restoring statehood will go a long way to help “heal the wounds”.

“By itself, it won’t be enough but it would definitely be a major step,” he added.

Asked about calls from a section for restoring Article 370 provisions that granted special status to J&K and were abrogated in 2019, Mr. Singh said, “My personal belief in this is that it seems to me prima facie that the changes are irreversible but the matter is before the Supreme Court so we shouldn’t unnecessarily make any detailed comment on it what should be done and what should not be done.”

The veteran Congress leader urged the Supreme Court to take up the matter soon, asserting that it was a very crucial and important issue that should be given priority. Asked about divergent views struck by Congress leaders on the Article 370 issue, Singh said he was not a Congress spokesperson and would not want to speak on behalf of the party.

“I expressed my personal view that it did not seem to me that Article 370 can be restored...My view may be slightly divergent from others. But the consensus is what Ghulam Nabi (Azad) said and the matter is before the Supreme Court and they will decide on it," he said.

Asked what were his expectations from the Centre on J&K going forward, Singh said he expected that they would move forward as they say on delimitation, elections and statehood.

Demanding a financial-cum-developmental package for the people of J&K, Singh said for two years the state suffered very heavily.

“The whole Kashmir Valley, the horticulture was destroyed, tourism which is our mainstay was destroyed, so tens of hundreds of crores of losses were suffered,” he said, adding that in Jammu also heavy losses were incurred.

“So they should first compensate those people who lost during those two years,” he said.

Mr. Modi’s J&K outreach saw the Prime Minister conveying to the 14 political leaders from the union territory during their face-to-face meeting in New Delhi that he wanted to end the ‘Dilli ki Doori’ as well as ‘Dil ki Doori’ (distance from Delhi as well as the distance of hearts) with Jammu and Kashmir, which has witnessed a prolonged spell of militancy and unrest.

The four former chief ministers of the erstwhile state who participated in the discussions were Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah of the National Conference, Congress’ Ghulam Nabi Azad and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti.

Four former deputy chief ministers were in attendance too - Congress’ Tara Chand, People’s Conference leader Muzaffar Hussain Baig and BJP’s Nirmal Singh and Kavinder Gupta.

CPI(M) leader Mohammed Yusuf Tarigami, Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP) chief Altaf Bukhari, Sajjad Lone of the People’s Conference, J-K Congress head G A Mir, BJP’s Ravinder Raina and Panthers' Party leader Bhim Singh also formed part of the delegation.

This was the first interaction between the top leadership of the Union government and mainstream parties in J&K since August 5, 2019, when the Centre revoked its special status provided under Article 370 and bifurcated the border state into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. (PTI)

Mamata Writes To PM For Expediting WHO Nod To Covaxin

 

The West Bengal CM said that many countries are allowing entry to only those people who have taken WHO-approved vaccines

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention for early approval of Covaxin by the World Health Organisation, without which people who have taken the Bharat Biotech jab may face problems travelling abroad.

The CM, in her letter, stated that her government has been “receiving both Covishield and Covaxin” from the very beginning.

Even the private sector in the state has procured and administered both the vaccines, she said.

“A large number of students from all over the country travel abroad every year for higher studies and many of them have got themselves vaccinated with Covaxin. They came to learn later on that their vaccination certificate is not valid abroad. These students are now in a fix regarding their next course of action and their career is at stake,” Banerjee wrote to Modi on Thursday.

Many countries are allowing entry to only those people who have taken WHO-approved vaccines, she noted.

“It is learnt that Covaxin is still not approved by WHO and it is not possible to travel abroad as many countries are allowing only those people who are fully vaccinated with WHO-approved vaccines. Hence, I request for your kind intervention so that an early approval is received for Covaxin from WHO so that students do not face any problem. This will also benefit people travelling abroad for job, education, business and any other purposes as well,” she added.

Banerjee had, on Wednesday, asked Chief Secretary H.K. Dwidevi to write to the Union Health Secretary and Cabinet Secretary on this matter.

She had also urged the Centre to take steps to ensure that people inoculated with Covaxin do not face any restrictions during their overseas travel.

Countries Relying On Chinese Vaccines Reporting Covid Surge

 

FILE PHOTO: A medical professional holds a small bottle labeled with a 'Vaccine COVID-19' sticker and a medical syringe, in this illustration picture

Countries like Mongolia, Seychelles and Bahrain had relied on the easily accessible Chinese COVID-19 vaccines to combat the coronavirus pandemic and bring back normalcy. These countries are now battling a surge in infections.

Examples from several countries suggest that the Chinese vaccines may not be very effective at preventing the spread of the virus, particularly the new variants, reported The New York Times (NYT).

In Seychelles, Chile, Bahrain and Mongolia, about 50 to 68 per cent of the populations have been fully inoculated with Chinese vaccines, outpacing the United States, according to Our World in Data, a data-tracking project. They are also among the top 10 countries with the worst COVID-19 outbreaks as recently as last week.

"If the vaccines are sufficiently good, we should not see this pattern," said Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong. "The Chinese have a responsibility to remedy this."

Amid uncertainty over how countries with relatively high inoculation rates are suffering new outbreaks, scientists have pointed out to relaxing of social controls and careless behaviour.

Israel, which has the second-highest vaccination rate in the world with shots from Pfizer after Seychelles, reports 4.95 new COVID-19 cases per million. On the other hand, in Seychelles, which relied mostly on Sinopharm, that number is more than 716 cases per million.

China, as well as the more than 90 nations that have received the Chinese shots, may end up as a country that is fully vaccinated but partly protected from the virus, contending with rolling lockdowns, testing and limits on day-to-day life for months or years to come. Moreover, economies could remain held back, reported NYT.

Beijing saw its vaccine diplomacy as an opportunity to emerge from the pandemic as a more influential global power. China's top leader, Xi Jinping, pledged to deliver a Chinese shot that could be easily stored and transported to millions of people around the world.

Mongolia, relying on Chinese aid, quickly rolled out an inoculation program and eased restrictions, vaccinating 52 per cent of its population. However, it recorded 2,400 new infections on Sunday, quadrupling from a month before.

In a statement, China's Foreign Ministry said it did not see a link between the recent outbreaks and its vaccines. It cited the World Health Organization as saying that vaccination rates in certain countries had not reached sufficient levels to prevent outbreaks, and that countries needed to continue to maintain controls, according to NYT.

"Relevant reports and data also show that many countries that use Chinese-made vaccines have expressed that they are safe and reliable, and have played a good role in their epidemic prevention efforts," the ministry said.

While the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have efficacy rates of more than 90 per cent, China's Sinopharm vaccine has an efficacy rate of 78.1 per cent and the Sinovac vaccine has an efficacy rate of 51 per cent.

Moreover, the Chinese companies have not released much clinical data to show how their vaccines work at preventing transmission. Data on breakthrough infections has not been made available, either, though a Sinovac study out of Chile showed that the vaccine was less effective than those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna at preventing infection among vaccinated individuals.

William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University, said the efficacy rates of Chinese shots could be low enough "to sustain some transmission, as well as create illness of a substantial amount in the highly vaccinated population, even though it keeps people largely out of the hospital".

Despite the spike in cases, officials in both Seychelles and Mongolia have defended Sinopharm, saying it is effective in preventing severe cases of the disease.

Nikolai Petrovsky, a professor at the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in Australia, said that with all of the evidence, it would be reasonable to assume the Sinopharm vaccine had minimal effect on curbing transmission. He said that a major risk with the Chinese inoculation is that vaccinated people may have few or no symptoms and still spread the virus to others.

In Indonesia, where a new variant is spreading, more than 350 doctors and healthcare workers recently came down with COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated with Sinovac, according to the risk mitigation team of the Indonesian Medical Association.

Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates were the first two countries to approve the Sinopharm shot, even before late-stage clinical trial data was released. Since then, there have been extensive reports of vaccinated people falling ill in both countries, NYT reported. (ANI)

Why The 'World's Happiest Country' Seeks Migrants

 

Workers are needed "to help cover the cost of the greying generation", a recruiter explained (Photo: VisitFinland)

Repeatedly dubbed the happiest nation on the planet with world-beating living standards, Finland should be deluged by people wanting to relocate, but in fact it faces an acute workforce shortage.

"It's now widely acknowledged that we need a spectacular number of people to come to the country," recruiter Saku Tihverainen from agency Talented Solutions told AFP.

Workers are needed "to help cover the cost of the greying generation", the recruiter explained.

While many Western countries are battling weak population growth, few are feeling the effects as sharply as Finland.

With 39.2 over-65s per 100 working-age people, it is second only to Japan in the extent of its ageing population, according to the UN, which forecasts that by 2030 the "old age dependency ratio" will rise to 47.5.

The government has warned that the nation of 5.5 million needs to practically double immigration levels to 20,000-30,000 a year to maintain public services and plug a looming pensions deficit.

Finland might seem like an attractive destination on paper, scoring high in international comparisons for quality of life, freedom and gender equality, with little corruption, crime and pollution.

But anti-immigrant sentiment and a reluctance to employ outsiders are also widespread in Western Europe's most homogenous society, and the opposition far-right Finns Party regularly draws substantial support during elections.

TIPPING POINT

After years of inertia, businesses and government "are now at the tipping point and are recognising the problem" posed by a greying population, said Charles Mathies, a research fellow at the Academy of Finland.

Mathies is one of the experts consulted by the government's "Talent Boost" programme, now in its fourth year, which aims to make the country more attractive internationally, in part through local recruitment schemes.

Those targeted include health workers from Spain, metalworkers from Slovakia, and IT and maritime experts from Russia, India and Southeast Asia.

But previous such efforts have petered out.

In 2013, five of the eight Spanish nurses recruited to the western town of Vaasa left after a few months, citing Finland's exorbitant prices, cold weather and notoriously complex language.

Finland has nonetheless seen net immigration for much of the last decade, with around 15,000 more people arriving than leaving in 2019.

But many of those quitting the country are higher-educated people, official statistics show.

Faced with the OECD's largest skilled worker shortage, some Finnish startups are creating a joint careers site to better bag overseas talent.

"As you can imagine, this is a slow burner," Shaun Rudden from food delivery firm Wolt said in an email, adding that "We try to make the relocation process as painless as possible."

SYSTEMIC PROBLEM

Startups "have told me that they can get anyone in the world to come and work for them in Helsinki, as long as he or she is single," the capital's mayor, Jan Vapaavuori, said to AFP.

But "their spouses still have huge problems getting a decent job."

Many foreigners complain of a widespread reluctance to recognise overseas experience or qualifications, as well as prejudice against non-Finnish applicants.

Ahmed (who requested his name be changed for professional reasons) is a 42-year-old Brit with many years' experience in building digital products for multinational, household-name companies.

Yet six months of networking and applying for jobs in Helsinki, where he was trying to move for family reasons, proved fruitless.

"One recruiter even refused to shake my hand, that was a standout moment," he told AFP.

"There was never a shortage of jobs going, just a shortage of mindset," said Ahmed, who during his search in Finland received offers from major companies in Norway, Qatar, the UK and Germany, and eventually began commuting weekly from Helsinki to Dusseldorf.

Recruiter Saku Tihverainen said shortages are pushing more companies to loosen their insistence on only employing native Finnish workers.

"And yet, a lot of the Finnish companies and organisations are very adamant about using Finnish, and very fluent Finnish at that," he said.

CHANGING PRIORITIES

For Helsinki mayor Jan Vaaavuori, four years of Finland being voted the world's happiest country in a UN ranking have "not yet helped as much as we could have hoped."

"If you stop someone in the street in Paris or London or Rome or New York, I still don't think most people know about us," he mused.

Mayor Vapaavuori, whose four-year term ends this summer, has turned increasingly to international PR firms to help raise the city's profile.

He is optimistic about Finland's ability to attract talent from Asia in future, and believes people's priorities will have changed once international mobility ramps up again post-coronavirus.

Helsinki's strengths, being "safe, functional, reliable, predictable -- those values have gained in importance," he said, adding: "Actually I think our position after the pandemic is better than it was before."

(AFP)

Congress Leader Demands Restoration Of Statehood To J&K

FILE PHOTO: P Chidambaram's remarks come ahead of the June 24 meeting convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to which 14 political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir have been invited for talks

Seeking restoration of statehood for Jammu and Kashmir, Congress leader P Chidambaram on Monday said Parliament should repeal the “offending” laws in the upcoming monsoon session and restore the status quo ante there.

He asserted that it is the only way to draw the starting line for a political resolution of the Kashmir issue.

“What was made under the Constitution cannot be unmade by an Act of Parliament, misinterpreting and misusing the provisions of the Constitution,” he said.

His remarks come ahead of the June 24 meeting convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to which 14 political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir, including four former chief ministers, have been invited for talks.

“J&K was a ”state” that signed an Instrument of Accession and acceded to India. It must enjoy that status forever. J&K is not a piece of ”real estate”. J&K is ”people”. Their rights and wishes must be respected,” he said in a series of tweets.

“In the Monsoon session, Parliament should repeal the offending laws and restore the status quo ante in J&K. That is the only way to draw the starting line for a political resolution of the Kashmir issue,” the former union minister said.

Chidambaram noted that one should remember that the “dismembering” of J&K has been challenged in the Supreme Court and the cases have been pending for nearly two years.

“Congress Party’s position, reiterated yesterday, that full Statehood must be restored to J&K should clear any doubt or ambiguity,” he also said.

The Congress had on Sunday said it is committed to restoration of full statehood for Jammu and Kashmir and the Prime Minister and the BJP should accept this demand in the interest of Constitution and democracy.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said depriving Jammu and Kashmir of full statehood and not allowing its people to elect their own representatives is a direct attack on democracy and Constitutional principles.

The Central government abrogated the state’s special status and bifurcated it into UTs on August 5, 2019. The erstwhile state has been under the Centre’s rule since June 2018.

Contemporary Artist Prabhakar Pachpute Wins Artes Mundi Prize

 

Pachpute is known for working with an array of mediums and materials including drawing, light, stop-motion animations, sound and sculptural forms

Indian contemporary artist Prabhakar Pachpute has been named as one of the six winners of the ninth Artes Mundi Prize.

“I am so happy to know about the decision by the jury and I truly respect it. It’s an incredible decision to select all the six participant artists as awardees. I feel it’s a very kind gesture in today’s difficult times. I am honoured to share the prize with this wonderful company of artists,” Pachpute told PTI.

While the award has been traditionally given to one artist, this year, for the first time ever, the prize has been awarded to all the six shortlisted artists “in recognition of this time of exceptional social and economic upheaval and to acknowledge the outstanding quality of their individual practices, and the powerfully relevant work that has been either newly created or reconfigured especially for the exhibition”.

The awards were announced on Wednesday night.

“Reflecting on 2020 into the present, this has been a time of enormous social, political and economic upheaval, and as a jury, we have reached a collective, unanimous decision to award the Artes Mundi 9 Prize to all six participating artists,” the jurors said in a statement.

They added that each individual practice was “outstanding in merit, made especially, and powerfully relevant today”.

Works by all six of the winning artists are currently on display at National Museum Cardiff and Chapter until September 5, 2021.

“Together the six presentations create a coherent and timely exhibition, addressing a range of issues and topics for consideration. Furthermore, in creating new and ambitious bodies of work for Artes Mundi 9, each artist has demonstrated great resilience in overcoming the many, global obstacles that COVID-19 has presented. Collectively, the exhibition speaks to their distinctive and powerful voices in ways that are rich, thoughtful and rewarding,” the jurors said.

Congratulating Pachpute for his win, Kolkata-based Experimenter Gallery, that represents him globally, said the artist was a “crucially important voice from the region”, and the award was an “incredible recognition”.

“He (Pachpute) has continued to grapple with issues that confront us socially, politically and ecologically over the years and through his practice asks difficult and uncomfortable questions. We have had the privilege to work with Prabhakar from the very beginning of his career and know how deeply involved he has been both as an artist and as a citizen, taking friends, collaborators and comrades along in his inspiring journey,” Priyanka Raja of Experimenter told PTI.

Pachpute is known for working with an array of mediums and materials including drawing, light, stop-motion animations, sound and sculptural forms.

His use of charcoal has a direct connection to his subject matter and familial roots, coal mines and coal miners.

The Pune-based artist often creates immersive and dramatic environments in his site-specific works, using portraiture and landscape with surrealist tropes to critically tackle issues of mining labour and the effects of mining on the natural and human landscape.

Using Maharashtra as a starting point, the artist combines research from around the world and personal experiences, moving from the personal to the global, investigating a complexity of historical transformations on an economic, societal and environmental level.

Founded in 2002, the biennial prize is given by Artes Mundi, an internationally focused arts organisation that identifies, recognises and supports contemporary visual artists who engage with the human condition, social reality and lived experience.

It traditionally carries a cash prize of 40,000 Pound sterling (approx. $55,620), but this year, the winners will each receive 10,000 Pound sterling (approx. $13,900)

The shortlist was selected from over 500 nominations spanning over 60 countries, by a jury comprising of Cosmin Costinas, Executive Director and Curator of Para Site, Hong Kong and Artistic Director of Kathmandu Triennale 2020; Elvira Dyangani-Ose, Director of The Showroom gallery in London; and Rachel Kent, Chief Curator at Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Other winners include Firelei Báez from Dominican Republic, Dineo Seshee Bopape from South Africa, Meiro Koizumi from Japan, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz from Puerto Rico, and Carrie Mae Weems from the USA.

Third Covid Wave To Hit India By Oct: Reuters Poll Of Experts

 

FILE PHOTO: A man walks past a graffiti depicting coronavirus in Mumbai

A third wave of coronavirus infections is likely to hit India by October, and although it will be better controlled than the latest outbreak, the pandemic will remain a public health threat for at least another year, according to a Reuters news agency’s poll of medical experts.

The June 3-17 snap survey of 40 healthcare specialists, doctors, scientists, virologists, epidemiologists and professors from around the world showed that a significant rise in vaccinations will likely provide some cover to a fresh outbreak.

Of those who ventured a prediction, at least 85 percent of respondents, or 21 of 24, said the next wave will hit by October, including three who forecast it as early as August and 12 in September; the remaining three said between November and February.

But more than 70 percent of experts, or 24 of 34, said any new outbreak would be better controlled compared with the current one, which has been far more devastating – with shortages of vaccines, medicines, oxygen and hospital beds – than the smaller first surge in infections last year.

“It will be more controlled, as cases will be much less because more vaccinations would have been rolled out and there would be some degree of natural immunity from the second wave,” said Dr Randeep Guleria, director at the All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

So far, India has only fully vaccinated about five percent of its estimated 950 million eligible population, leaving many millions vulnerable to infections and deaths.

While a majority of healthcare experts predicted the vaccination drive would pick up significantly this year, they cautioned against an early removal of restrictions, as some states have done.

When asked if children and those under 18 years would be most at risk in a potential third wave, nearly two-thirds of experts, or 26 of 40, said yes.

“The reason being they are a completely virgin population in terms of vaccination because currently there is no vaccine available for them,” said Dr Pradeep Banandur, head of the Epidemiology Department at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS).

Experts warn the situation could become severe.

“If children get infected in large numbers and we are not prepared, there is nothing you can do at the last minute,” said Dr Devi Shetty, a cardiologist at Narayana Health and an adviser to the Karnataka state government on pandemic response planning.

“It will be a whole different problem as the country has very, very few paediatric intensive care unit beds, and that is going to be a disaster.”

But 14 experts said children were not at risk.

Earlier this week, a senior Health Ministry official said children were vulnerable and susceptible to infections but that analysis has shown a less severe health impact.

While 25 of 38 respondents said future coronavirus variants would not make existing vaccines ineffective, in response to a separate question, 30 of 41 experts said the coronavirus will remain a public health threat in India for at least a year.

“COVID-19 is a solvable problem, as obviously it was easy to get a solvable vaccine. In two years, India likely will develop herd immunity through vaccine and exposure of the disease,” said Robert Gallo, director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland and international scientific adviser, Global Virus Network.

Bihar Farmers Protest Flood Embankments To Save Livelihoods

 

Houses are submerged by a flood in Bihar. Every year, farmers are anxious about floods but also welcome the silt the floodwaters bring as it makes their land fertile (Image: Alamy)

Days before the monsoon hits the eastern Indian state of Bihar, farmers wait for rains and floods with trepidation. This year, however, farmers Rita Devi, 63, and Kanchan Kumari, 45, worry about a new threat. What keeps them up at night is the loss of fertile land, and the possible displacement they would face if the government goes ahead with a plan to construct a new embankment on the Bagmati river, a tributary of the Ganga, in the rural districts of Bihar where they live.

Both vowed to continue to oppose construction of the embankment, locally known as bundh, even at the cost of their lives.

“We will not allow the construction of this embankment – if it’s built we will lose our livelihoods and homes,” said Devi, who owns about 1.25 hectares of fertile land around the village of Kalyani in Muzaffarpur district, where thousands of men and women have been protesting against construction of the embankment.

A CONTROVERSIAL PLAN AGAINST FLOODS

Activists who oppose the project say that the nearly 4,000 kilometres of mud, sand and stone wall already enclosing Bihar’s rivers to protect the adjacent areas from flooding is not helping the people. In the early 1950s, the total length of the embankment was 160 kilometres, and 2.5 million hectares were considered flood-prone. After adding more flood protection, the flood-prone area has increased to 6.8 million hectares, making Bihar the most flood-affected state in India.

Dinesh Mishra, a renowned river expert in Bihar, explained that the mud walls, which are regularly breached at dozens of places, “[help those with] vested interests, [but] certainly not the people”.

Devi’s plea is echoed by Kumari, who is an elected member of the village administration and owns about 2.5 hectares of land. “If this embankment is built, it would be the end for us,” Kumari said.

Devi and Kumari are among thousands of villagers who have been opposing the construction of embankments since 2012, a movement called Bagmati Andolan. But this year, after the government intensified its efforts to build embankments, the protests have become louder.

Last year in September, the state government approved the construction of a new embankment and elevation of an old embankment under the Bagmati flood management plan. The government envisages an additional 56-kilometre embankment, for which it has already allocated nearly 5.5 billion Indian rupees (USD 5.48 billion).

LOSS OF FERTILE LAND

Mishra said that the people do not accept the government’s argument that the embankment will benefit them. Their fear, he said, “is not baseless”.

“It draws on the lived experience of those displaced when embankments were added in their areas,” Mishra said, adding: “No river basin in the world is as fertile as the Bagmati basin.” Local people have often told him that they want the silt to spread in their fields, “but the embankment deprived them of the natural fertiliser”.

Ranjeev, a water activist in Bihar, said that farmers in flood-prone northern districts used to welcome annual floods because rivers would spread rich silt and water across large areas, helping to fertilise their fields. But since the 1950s, creating artificial banks has become the mainstream policy to control floods. “This ongoing agitation against the embankment also carries a symbolic message,” Ranjeev said. “Farmers see it as a symbol of destruction, because wherever the embankment is built, it harms their fields, pushing them into the trap of poverty and forced migration.”

Jitendar Yadav, a resident of Jagania village near the river, said that villagers have been waiting for two decades for rehabilitation and compensation of the losses they faced due to the embankment. After years-long protests, in 2017 the government was forced to set up a review committee consisting of nine experts, but the committee met only once and failed to reach an agreement, he said.

SAFETY CONCERNS

The embankment on the Bagmati has broken as many as 54 times, river expert Dinesh Mishra said, bringing destruction and unpredictable flooding, and there is no guarantee it will not happen again. According to a 2019 Water Resources Department (WRD) report, most embankments on the rivers of north Bihar are breached every year. From 1987 to 2018, 408 breaches were recorded across Bihar’s rivers.

In his book about the Bagmati river, Mishra explains that people have been living in the basin for centuries because of the benefits the river brings to local agriculture. Every year, during the flooding season, the water replenishes the aquifers and spreads silt across the fields, fertilising them. For decades, he has been drawing attention to the risks of building embankments that disrupt the local ecosystem. His book explains: “Silt starts to accumulate between the embankments, which causes the river floor to rise gradually. This in turn raises the water levels, which compels engineers to keep elevating the embankments.”

Mishra’s analysis is reflected in the experience of villagers in Sitamarhi district, where the Bagmati river was embanked decades ago. Residents Mohan Paswan and Hari Mandal blame the embankment for the drastic loss of agricultural productivity. Not only are the farmers deprived of natural fertiliser, but when the embankment is breached, the subsequent unseasonal flood damages crops, destroys houses and spreads an excessive amount of sand across the fields.

“Our areas were known as a gold mine, with bountiful harvests of different crops after the floods,” Paswan said. “But after the embankment was built, everything changed. Floods have become more destructive, something that had never happened in the years before.”

The Third Pole

Didn’t Back Doubling Dose Gap: Scientists; Govt Counters Claim

 

FILE PHOTO: A woman holds vials labelled "COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine" over dry ice in this illustration picture

The government doubled the gap between the two doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine without the agreement of the scientific group that it said recommended the increase, three members of the advisory body told Reuters.

The Ministry of Health announced the decision to change the gap from 6-8 weeks to 12-16 weeks on May 13, at a time when supplies of the shot were falling short of demand and infections were surging across the country.

It said the extended gap was recommended by the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), based on real-life evidence, mainly from Britain. Yet the NTAGI scientists, classified by the government as three of the 14 “core members”, said the body did not have enough data to make such a recommendation.

M.D. Gupte, a former director of the state-run National Institute of Epidemiology, said the NTAGI had backed increasing the dosing interval to 8-12 weeks – the gap advised by the World Health Organization. But he added that the group had no data concerning the effects of a gap beyond 12 weeks.

“Eight to 12 weeks is something we all accepted, 12 to 16 weeks is something the government has come out with,” he added. “This may be alright, may not be. We have no information on that.”

This was echoed by his NTAGI colleague Mathew Varghese, who said the group’s recommendation was only for 8-12 weeks.

The Health Ministry, citing the head of NTAGI’s working group on COVID-19, said that the dosing decision was based on scientific evidence. “There was no dissenting voices among the NTAGI members,” the Ministry said on Twitter.

The Ministry’s statement on May 13 said that it had accepted the 12-16 weeks recommendation from NTAGI’s COVID working group, as had a group of mainly government officials tasked with vaccine administration, known as NEGVAC.

Government health officials told a news conference on May 15 the gap was not increased to address a vaccine shortage but was a “scientific decision”.

J.P. Muliyil, a member of the seven-strong COVID working group, said there had been discussions within the NTAGI on increasing the vaccine dosage interval but that the body had not recommended 12-16 weeks.

“That specific number was not quoted,” he said, without elaborating.

N.K. Arora, the COVID working group head, declined to comment to Reuters on its recommendations but said all its decisions were taken collectively by the NTAGI at large.

A NEGVAC representative said it “respects the decisions of the NTAGI and use them for our work”, declining to elaborate.

Real-world data released early last month by South Korea showed that one dose of the vaccines from AstraZeneca and Pfizer was 86.6% effective in preventing infections among people aged 60 and older.

Muliyil said this increased confidence within the advisory body that delaying a second shot would not be harmful.

The AstraZeneca vaccine accounts for nearly 90% of the 257.5 million vaccine doses administered in India.

The dispute over doses comes amid criticism from some scientists that the government had been slow to respond to a new virus variant that led to a spike in infections in April and May.

The government has denied being slow to react, saying state-run laboratories had studied variants in real time and shared data with local authorities to allow them to take the necessary action.

Shahid Jameel, a top Indian virologist who recently quit a government panel on virus variants after criticising New Delhi over its response to the pandemic, said the authorities should clarify their position on the reasons for the decision to double the gap between doses.

“In a situation where we have a variant of concern spreading, we should really be vaccinating people at scale and making sure that they are protected,” he added.

‘Govt Should Take Nation Into Confidence Over Galwan Incident’

 

FILE PHOTO: Indian Army trucks move along a highway leading to Ladakh, at Gagangeer in Kashmir's Ganderbal district

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday asked the government to come clean on the Galwan Valley incident (in eastern Ladakh) in which 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives a year ago and sought to know the progress made in restoring status quo ante at the border.

In a statement, she said no clarity is yet available on the Chinese transgressions at the border, which Prime minister Narendra Modi has denied.

Gandhi said the Congress has patiently waited for the government to come clean and inform the nation about the circumstances in which the unprecedented incident happened and reassure the people that the sacrifice of our brave jawans was not in vain.

"The Congress party reiterates its concern that no clarity is yet available and the prime minister's last word on the subject a year ago was that no transgression had occurred," she said.

"We have repeatedly sought details of the episode in light of the PM's statement, as well as details of what progress has been made towards restoring the status quo ante prior to April 2020," she also said.

The Congress chief said that the disengagement agreement with China "appears to have worked entirely to India's disadvantage so far".

"The Congress party urges the government to take the nation into confidence and ensure that their performance is worthy of the commitment of our soldiers who are standing bravely and resolutely at the borders," she said in her statement.

Gandhi further said, "As we approach the first anniversary of the tragic loss of 20 brave soldiers of the Bihar Regiment, including their commanding officer, in the confrontation with PLA troops of China on the night of June 15-16, 2020, the Congress party joins a grateful nation in remembrance of their supreme sacrifice."

Twenty Indian soldiers lost their lives in clashes with PLA troops at the India-China border in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on the intervening night of June 15 and 16, 2020.

Misuse Of Devotees' Donations An Insult To Faith: Priyanka Gandhi

FILE PHOTO: Priyanka Gandhi said the misuse of donations is "unrighteous and is a sin and an insult to their (devotees') faith"

 Amid charges of corruption in the land purchased by the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust in Ayodhya, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday said misuse of donations by devotees is a sin and an insult to their faith.

“Crores of people made their offerings at the feet of God out of their faith and devotion. Misuse of those donations is unrighteous and is a sin and an insult to their faith,” she said in a tweet in Hindi.

The Congress on Sunday alleged that scams are happening by taking donations in the name of Lord Ram after two opposition leaders accused Shriram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust general secretary Champat Rai of buying a piece of land at an inflated price for the Ram temple premises.

The allegation that the land worth Rs 2 crore was bought at an inflated price of Rs 18.5 crore was made by AAP’s Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh and a former minister in the Samajwadi Party government, Pawan Pandey.

The allegation was strongly refuted by Rai. Tagging a tweet on Rai refuting the allegation, Congress’ chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had said on Sunday, “Lord Ram, what kind of days are these? Scams are happening by taking donations in your name. Shameless robbers are intoxicated with arrogance like Ravana and are selling faith.”

“The question is how the land bought for Rs 2 crore was sold after 10 minutes to ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’ for Rs 18.50 crores?” he asked.

“Now it seems Kans are ruling, Ravana is everywhere!” Surjewala had said in a tweet in Hindi.

Terming it a case of money laundering, Singh and Pandey sought a probe into it by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate.

Batch Of New Coronaviruses In Bats Found: Report

 

The researchers from Shandong University in China said, "In total, we assembled 24 novel coronavirus genomes from different bat species, including four SARS-CoV-2 like coronaviruses"

Amid renewed calls to probe the origins of COVID-19, Chinese researchers have said they have found a batch of new coronaviruses in bats.

The newly-found viruses include one that may be the second-closest yet (genetically) to the COVID-19 virus, CNN reported.

The researchers say that their discoveries in southwestern China show just how many coronaviruses are there in bats and how many have the potential to spread to people.

In a report published in the journal Cell, the Chinese researchers from Shandong University said, "In total, we assembled 24 novel coronavirus genomes from different bat species, including four SARS-CoV-2 like coronaviruses."

The samples were collected from small, forest-dwelling bats between May 2019 and November 2020. The researchers say that they tested urine and feces as well as taking swabs from the bats' mouths.

According to the Chinese researchers, one of the viruses was very similar, genetically, to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that's causing the ongoing pandemic. "It would be the closest strain to SARS-CoV-2 except for genetic differences on the spike protein, the knob-like structure that the virus uses when attaching to cells," they said.

"Together with the SARS-CoV-2 related virus collected from Thailand in June 2020, these results clearly demonstrate that viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 continue to circulate in bat populations, and in some regions might occur at a relatively high frequency," they wrote.

This discovery of new coronaviruses in bats comes amid growing calls for a timely, transparent and evidence-based independent process for the next phase of the WHO-convened COVID-19 origins study.

Recently, the calls to investigate further the origins of COVID-19 have intensified.

The origin of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has remained a mystery even after over 1.5 years of the first case of the infection being reported in Wuhan, China.

Now, scientists and countries are calling for further investigations to figure out whether the virus originated naturally or leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Protesting Farmer Leaders Appear To Have ‘Secret Agenda’: Vij

FILE PHOTO: Anil Vij said that it appears that the agenda of the farmers is not (repeal of) farm laws, but (they have) some "secret agenda"

Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij has said that farmer leaders, protesting against the three farm laws, may have some “secret agenda” behind their opposition to the central legislation.

This is indicated by the fact that the farmers’ union leaders have never been able to support their objections to the laws with any “sound logic” during their talks with the Centre, he alleged.

He also pointed out that the Centre has never closed its doors for talks with the protesting farmers.

Vij made the remarks a day after Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said that the government is ready to resume talks with protesting farmers but asked the unions to point out their objections to the provisions of the three farm laws with sound logic.

“Tomar Ji has clearly said the doors for talks are open. The government never closed its doors. There have already been 11-12 rounds of talks earlier,” Vij said, “But farmers’ union leaders have not even once been able to point out what their objections to the farm laws are,” Vij told reporters in Ambala.

“They have not been able to point out the objections. From this, it appears that their agenda is not (repeal of) farm laws, but (they have) some secret agenda,” said Vij.

Scores of farmers have been camping at Delhi’s borders since November last year, demanding the rollback of laws and the enactment of a new law to guarantee the minimum support price (MSP) for their crops.

Several rounds of talks between the agitating farmers and the government have failed to break the deadlock over these contentious laws.

Protesting farmer leaders had on Wednesday reiterated that a complete repeal of the three farm laws and legal guarantee on MSP are their main demands, after the government said it was ready to resume talks and asked them to point out their objections to the provisions of the legislation.

The last round of talks was held on January 22 to break the deadlock and end the farmers’ protest. Talks have not resumed following widespread violence during a tractor rally by protesting farmers on January 26. (PTI)

'It Could Be Years Before Covid-19 Is Controlled In The Americas'

 

Infections are higher in many places in the Americas than at any other point during the pandemic, said PAHO Director Carissa Etienne

If the spread of COVID-19 continues at current rates, it will be years before the virus is controlled in the Americas, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday, as it called for countries to share excess vaccine doses.

There were almost 1.2 million new cases and 34,000 deaths in the region last week, and four of the five countries with the highest death counts worldwide are in the Americas, PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said during the organization's weekly news conference.

"If current trends continue, the health, social and economic disparities in our region will grow even larger, and it will be years before we control this virus in the Americas," Etienne said.

Infections are higher in many places in the region than at any other point during the pandemic, she said, and the emergence of new, more easily transmitted variants has added new complexities to epidemiological surveillance.

Just 10% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean have been fully vaccinated, with a particularly acute situation in Central American and the Caribbean.

PAHO is thankful to the United States, Spain and Canada for promises to donate millions of doses or funding, but more needs to be done, the director said.

"We hope other countries - particularly those with excess doses - and global financial institutions will follow in their footsteps to provide the support we need," Etienne said. "Vaccine donations are essential in the short-term."

Ahead of the kick-off of the Copa America soccer tournament in Brazil on Sunday, Ciro Ugarte, PAHO's Director of Health Emergencies, said countries hosting mass events should consider postponing if COVID-19 risks cannot be controlled.

Venezuela still owes $10 million in funding for vaccines via the COVAX vaccine sharing program, Ugarte said.

COVAX supply for Venezuela will likely not be ready soon because of global demand, but PAHO hopes Venezuela and other regional countries will be given priority because they have not yet received COVAX doses.

Hospitalizations in Haiti are stretching oxygen supplies there, Etienne said.

Haiti, one of only a handful of countries which has yet to administer a single dose of the coronavirus vaccine, is grappling with its first major outbreak.

Bolivia and Colombia are seeing a rise in cases and deaths and intensive care unit beds are near capacity in many Colombian cities, Etienne added.

 

How Mumbai 'Chased The Virus' And Beat It: Report

 

FILE PHOTO: Staff members of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation monitor the movement of people on the roads, inside a "war room" focused on halting the spread of the coronavirus disease in Mumbai

When COVID-19 arrived in India, few places looked as vulnerable as Mumbai. But a year on, the city has surprised many by tackling a vicious second wave with considerable success.

Gaurav Awasthi even travelled hundreds of kilometres from his home on the outskirts of Delhi to get his unwell wife a hospital bed there, paying an ambulance more than ₹ 72,000 to drive 24 hours straight.

"I cannot ever repay my debt to this city," the 29-year-old told AFP, recounting an ordeal that saw him spend five days fruitlessly searching for a bed across several cities, including Delhi.

"I don't know if my wife would be alive today if it weren't for Mumbai's health facilities."

BODIES IN WARDS

The bodies began turning up early in Mumbai during the first wave of infections last year -- a man collapsing on a busy road, a rickshaw driver slumped over the wheel, a body lying in the street -- in a grim echo of the 1918 flu pandemic.

By May 2020, Abhignya Patra was working 18-hour days at the massive Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, better known as Sion.

"It was non-stop," the 27-year-old anaesthesiologist told AFP.

Patients' relatives described distressing scenes inside packed wards, with one man telling AFP he had to change his sick mother's diapers himself because staff were too overworked.

A video shot inside Sion and widely shared on social media showed bodies wrapped in black plastic left on beds in a ward where patients were being treated.

Every night, the city helpline fielded thousands of calls from desperate citizens, many with no chance of getting admitted to a publicly-funded hospital: Mumbai had just 80 ambulances and 425 intensive care units for a population of two crore.

'CHASE THE VIRUS'

Something had to change fast, said Iqbal Chahal, a no-nonsense bureaucrat who took over as Mumbai's municipal commissioner last May.

New field hospitals added thousands of beds, private facilities handed over their COVID-19 wards to the government and 800 vehicles were turned into ambulances.

But these efforts could not combat the swift rise in infections.

"We needed to chase the virus," Mr Chahal told AFP.

A proactive approach focused on 55 slums, including Mumbai's Dharavi, where a strict lockdown was accompanied by aggressive sanitisation of public toilets, mass coronavirus screening and a huge volunteer effort to ensure that nobody went hungry.

All positive test reports in Mumbai were routed through "war rooms" manned by doctors who would triage cases and decide where to send the patient, irrespective of "whether he is a minister, a big shot or a slum dweller", Mr Chahal said.

FORWARD THINKING

As 2020 wore on, it looked like the country might have miraculously beaten the pandemic and lockdown restrictions were eased.

But in Mumbai, authorities didn't dismantle a single bed in the now-deserted field hospitals.

This meant that when cases surged in March, the metropolis was much better prepared than many other cities, where the health care system came close to collapse.

In Delhi and elsewhere, patients died outside hospitals and crematoriums were overwhelmed. But not in Mumbai.

Despite having a much higher population density than many other cities, Mumbai has seen significantly lower mortality rates.

The city still suffered close calls, Mr Chahal said, recalling one night in April when six hospitals faced dire oxygen shortages, putting 168 patients at serious risk unless they were shifted to other facilities.

Everyone survived.

"We always expected a second wave," Mr Chahal said.

"WAKE-UP CALL"

Ms Patra recalls getting calls from colleagues in Delhi desperately searching for medical equipment.

"As doctors, there is very little we can do in the absence of infrastructure," she said.

Ruben Mascarenhas, co-founder of Mumbai-based non-profit Khaana Chahiye, said he would get dozens of messages every morning from people begging for oxygen and drugs -- but as the pandemic wore on, the requests mostly came from outside the city.

He was, he says, "pleasantly surprised", but is "very cautious about celebrating yet."

He is not the only one.

An experienced marathon-runner, Mr Chahal is already preparing for a third wave -- expected to hit children hard -- by stockpiling oxygen, building paediatric field hospitals and expanding capacity at public hospitals.

"This has been a wake-up call for us," he said.

(AFP)

Class V Girl Writes To CJI On Fight Against Covid, Gets Reply

Chief Justice of India Justice N.V. Ramana

 

Amid debate over whether the Centre's decision to provide free COVID-19 vaccines to all above 18 years was triggered by the Supreme Court's recent remarks on the jab policy, a Class V student from Kerala, Lidwina Joseph, has written to Chief Justice N.V. Ramana lauding the top court for its effective intervention in the fight against the pandemic.

Joseph, a student of Kendriya Vidyalaya at Thrissur, also enclosed in her letter a drawing depicting discharge of duties by the apex court, where a judge is seen hammering down coronavirus and has the tricolour, the lion capital and a smiling portrait of the Father of the Nation.

“I was much worried about the deaths in Delhi and other parts of the country due to Corona. From the newspapers, I understood that your honourable court has intervened effectively (to prevent) the sufferings and death of ordinary people in the fight against Covid-19. I am happy and feel proud that your honourable court has moved orders for supply of oxygen and saved many lives. I understood your honourable court has initiated effective steps in bringing down COVID-19 and the death rate in our country, especially in Delhi. I thank you, Your Honour for this. Now I feel very proud and happy..,” Joseph wrote to CJI Ramana towards the end of May, when Delhiites were facing tough times due to the deadly second corona wave.

The lucky girl got the Chief Justice of India's response and best wishes as well for her “beautiful letter” and “heart-warming illustration of a judge at work” in her drawing accompanying the letter.

“I have received your beautiful letter along with a heart-warming illustration of the Judge at work. I am really impressed with the way you kept track of happenings in the country and the concern that you have displayed for the well-being of people in the wake of the pandemic. I am sure you will grow up into an alert, informed and responsible citizen who will contribute immensely towards nation building,” the CJI wrote back, wishing the best and all round success to the little girl.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Monday that the central government will provide free coronavirus vaccines to states for inoculation of all above the age of 18 from June 21 and this led to an intense debate in the media as to who and what triggered the decision.

As per news reports, while Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan thanked the Centre for the decision, the Delhi government credited the Supreme Court for the decision announced by the Prime Minister in his address to the nation.

Some reports also said the Centre had initiated the decision-making process and the ground work before the apex court's remarks.

A few days before the Prime Minister announced free COVID inoculation for those above 18 years of age from June 21, the Supreme Court, in its May 31 order which was uploaded two days after the hearing, had asked the Centre to review its vaccination policy, saying it was “prima facie arbitrary and irrational” to allow states and private hospitals to charge people in the 18-44 age group for the jabs.