12
T he Supreme Court on Thursday gave two-week time to the Centre and the States to complete the trans- portation of all stranded migrant workers to their native places and fixed June 9 as the date to pronounce its order on the issue. A Bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan was hearing the matter in which it had taken suo motu cognisance on the plight of migrant workers who were stranded across the country due to the Covid-19 lockdown. The Centre informed the court on Friday that around one crore migrant workers across the country have already reached their destination — around 41 lakh by road trans- port and 57 lakh by trains. During the hearing, the advocates representing vari- ous States gave the figures of migrant workers as per which, over 11 lakh and 20.5 lakh peo- ple have gone back from Maharashtra and Gujarat respectively. Counsel appearing for Bihar and Uttar Pradesh informed the SC they have so far received 28 lakh and 21.69 lakh migrants respectively. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the Bench, also comprising Justices SK Kaul and MR Shah, that so far 802 trains have been operated from Maharashtra for trans- porting migrant workers. Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, repre- senting the Delhi Government, told the top court that around two lakh workers are still in the national Capital and only around 10,000 of them have expressed their desire to return to their native places. The counsel appearing for Gujarat told the SC that out of around 22 lakh migrant work- ers in the State, 20.5 lakh have already been transported back. Senior advocate PS Narasimha, appearing for Uttar Pradesh, said that around 5.50 lakh migrants workers were brought back into the State from Delhi borders for which buses made over 10,000 trips. The State Government told the Bench that 1,664 Shramik trains were organised and around 21.69 lakhs migrant workers were brought back in Uttar Pradesh. It said they have sent back around 1.35 lakh migrants, who were in Uttar Pradesh, and 104 special trains were operat- ed for this. The counsel appearing for the Bihar Government told the court that around 28 lakh migrant workers have returned to the State. The lawyer said that the Bihar Government is taking steps to provide them employment and so far, skill mapping of around 10 lakh migrants has been done. The counsel representing West Bengal said that around 3.97 lakh stranded migrants are in the State and relief camps were serving around one lakh meals. The counsel said that West Bengal is more of a receiv- ing State and they will provide every assistance which is need- ed to bring people back. The counsel representing Kerala said that around 4.34 lakh migrants were there and over one lakh persons have already been transported. The Kerala Government said 1.61 lakh wanted to stay put. When Kerala’s counsel said that Railways is under the Central Government and they should take care of the cost of return by migrants, the Bench said that all States must make their own arrangements. R esource-starved as it is, the Government will not start any new schemes for a year, the Finance Ministry said on Friday making it clear that any spending will only be allowed in the Prime Minister’s “Garib Kalyan Package” and the recent announcements made under “the Atmanirbhar Bharat package”. No other scheme would be approved. Schemes already approved under the Budget will also stay suspended till March 31, 2021. The drastic move is to tighten spending amid rising coronavirus cases with no clar- ity on when the pandemic will peak in the country. “It may be appreciated that in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is an unprece- dented demand on public financial resources and a need to use resources prudently in accordance with emerging and changing priorities,” the expen- diture department, under the Finance Ministry, said adding that it has been receiving many new proposals for in-principle approval from various Ministries or departments. All Ministries have been told to stop sending requests for new schemes to the Finance Ministry. Spending will only be allowed in the Prime Minister’s Garib Kalyan Package and the announcements made under the Atmanirbhar Bharat pack- age, it said. “No new proposals for a scheme/sub-scheme should be initiated this year (2020-21) except the proposals announced under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package, the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan package and any other special package/announce- ment,” a Ministery note said. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman had announced 1.70 lakh crore PM Garib Kalyan package on May 6 and 20 lakh crore Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan package on May 16 with emphasis on giving quick relief to poor and small scale indus- tries and reviving economy with a new mantra of ‘swadeshi’ and self-reliance. I ndia climbed to the sixth spot in the world table of worst- hit coronavirus nations by leav- ing behind Italy after recording the fourth straight day of 9,000 plus new cases on Friday. Now the US, Brazil, Russia, Spain, and the UK are ahead of it. The country recorded 9,045 new cases and 279 deaths on Friday, which took its over- all count of new cases to 2,35,767 and deaths to 6,642. Maharashtra sank into deep despair on Friday as the State recorded highest-ever day’s tally of 139 deaths and as many as 2,436 new infected cases. With the fresh deaths and infections, the total num- ber of deaths rose to 2,849, while the total infected cases jumped to 80,229. Taking into the total num- ber of deaths so far and the fact that 35,156 patients have been discharged from various hos- pitals so far, the State health authorities pegged the number of “active cases” at 42,215. Of the deaths reported on Friday, Mumbai accounted for 54 deaths, while there were 30 deaths in Thane, 14 deaths each in Pune and Jalgaon, eight deaths in Malegaon, seven deaths in Kalyan-Dombivli, five deaths in Ratnagiri, two deaths each in Solapur and Nashik, one death each in Vasai-Virar -1, Bhiwandi, and Aurangabad-1. Tamil Nadu saw 1,438 per- sons testing positive for coro- navirus on Friday, the highest ever number to be tested pos- itive on a single day. With the addition of 1,438 patients into the pool, Tamil Nadu has 12,697 active Covid- 19 cases as on Friday. Till date 28,694 persons have tested positive for the pandemic in the State, according to a medical bulletin by the Tamil Nadu Government. The death tally on Friday was 12 and this took the total number of fatalities till date to 232. Out of the 12 who breathed their last on Friday, four were in the 80-82 age group, three were in 70-72 group, one was 68, two were 56 and 50 years of age, and a 44- year-old person. T wenty people, who were infected by a housemaid, have been found corona posi- tive in the Tarun Enclave of Pitampura area of Delhi. The Enclave has now been declared as a containment zone. The entire area was declared a containment zone on June 3 as cases increased. As a precautionary measure more than 750 people ranging from house number 130 to 340 in Tarun Enclave has been asked to live in self-quarantine. According to the DM, the first case of corona positive was reported on May 24 and since then the 20 more cases have been registered here. It was on May 24 the area was sealed. The root cause of the coro- na spread has been located to a house where a maid used to come regularly, infecting chil- dren and then all the people of the house got corona positive. The area was sealed on 24 May only after the corona patients’ case surfaced and DC, North MCD were asked to undergo sanitation in this regard. On June 3, seeing the coro- na case increasing, the entire area has been declared as a con- tainment zone. It is reported that the coro- na infection has taken place in this area from a house where a maid used to come regularly. The children were infected and then all the people of the house got infected. The infection from chil- dren occurred to other children playing in the colony and then from those children to their respective families. A ll eyes are now on the talks on Saturday between senior military commanders of India and China on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to defuse nearly month-long multiple face-offs in Eastern Ladakh. India is firm on mutual and simultaneous pull- back of soldiers from the flash- points and an assurance from China to stop disrupting con- struction activities like roads and infrastructure develop- ment near the LAC. The talks will be held between Leh-based 14 Corps chief Lt General Harinder and his Chinese counterpart in Chushul-Moldo. It is a mutu- ally-agreed Border Personnel Meeting between the two coun- tries to resolve such con- tentious issues. The Indian commander will cross over the LAC to meet the Chinese senior commander. This level of talks will take place after seven earlier meet- ings between local comman- ders of two sides failed to break the deadlock in the last one fortnight. At pre- sent, the two armies are in a stand-off at four points in Eastern Ladakh. The frontage is between 20 and 30 km but in small pockets where soldiers are in an eyeball to eyeball confrontation, sources said here on Friday. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, while admitting that China had sizably increased its troop strength on the LAC dur- ing the stand-offs, said two days back he was hopeful the talks at the Lt General level will pave the way for peaceful res- olution of the ongoing dispute. B ollywood producer Anil Suri, who had backed films like Raaj Kumar-Rekha starrer Karmayogi” and “Raaj Tilak”, passed away due to coron- avirus on Thursday. He was 77. Anil’s brother, film pro- ducer Rajiv Suri, said he had fever on June 2 but his condi- tion worsened the next day with breathlessness. “He was rushed to Lilavati and Hinduja, but both denied him a bed,” Rajiv claimed. “He was then taken to Advanced Multispeciality Hospital on Wednesday night. He had Covid-19. On Thursday evening, they said something is amiss and he was put on ventilator. He died around 7:00 pm,” said Rajiv. Last rites of Anil were held on Friday morning at Oshiwara cremation ground. F or the first time, the Road and Highway Ministry has woken up to the need of reduc- ing animal mortality on State roads and national highways. For this purpose, the Ministry has asked State Governments and other stakeholders of wildlife and environment to assist it in identifying accident blackspots. The Ministry is already rectifying identified blackspots to curtail human fatality on highways. Sources said the Ministry has asked the Central road making agency NHAI and the States to replicate the same model. This includes conduct- ing studies for road engineer- ing favourable to animal movement, constructing underpasses, elevated corri- dors, via-ducts, cut and cover, guardwall, fencing, watchtow- er, solar pumps, ponds for drinking water for animals. “Similar exercises are being undertaken in the forest area of MP, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttarakhand, as part of a cam- paign ‘Prevention of Human and Animal Mortality on Highways’. There is a need for gener- ating awareness and educating for the masses towards reduc- ing or eliminating both human and animal fatality,” Road Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said. F amous for Africa’s tallest mountain Kilimanjaro and Serengeti National Park, Tanzania has a population of around 5.63 crore out of which just 509 are infected by the coronavirus. Known for its palm- fringed beaches, Liberia is another African nation with an equally impoverished popula- tion of mere 48 lakh — the average age is just around 18 — of which only 311 have tested positive. Interestingly, both of these countries, like many other nations with minuscule coro- navirus outbreak on their soils, have admitted to community transmission — a state in which the disease becomes so wide- spread that one can’t pinpoint the source of infection, or where the contract-tracing was not possible. Zoom to India, Russia, and China — the three countries hit hard by the virus. The world has rained obloquy on China over its dubious claim of arrest- ing the growth of coronavirus at around 85,000 cases. Even if that number is accepted as credible, China is placed as the 18 worst affected nation in the world, 12 places behind India (2.3 lakh cases), and 16 ranks behind Russia (2.5 lakh plus cases). Despite such a huge num- ber of cases, India, China, and Russia are the only three coun- tries among the top 15 affect- ed nations that have denied reaching the community trans- mission stage. For its classification of the transmission stage, the World Health Organisation (WHO) relies solely on the reports it receives from respective coun- tries. Now, let’s go back to Tanzania. The African nation had just 480 positive corona cases on May 1. During the last 33 days till June 3, it added a trickling of 29 cases. Similarly, Liberia had 152 confirmed cases on May 1. In 33 days from then, it added five cases every day to reach a figure of 316 on June 3. Both these countries are brack- eted with dozens of nations such as South Africa ( 35,000 cases), Nigeria (10,819 cases) Algeria (9,626 cases), Ghana (8,297 cases) Cameroon (6,585 cases) Guinea (3,886 cases) Senegal (3,836 cases) the Democratic Republic of the Congo (3,325) Côte d’Ivoire (3,024) Gabon (2,803 cases) Kenya (2,093 cases) Mali (1,351 cases), which have admitted to community transmission. Even in Europe, where the health system is far better than Africa and India, a majority of the countries have admitted to reaching the stage of commu- nity transmission. New Delhi: Indigenously developed ELISA testing kits for Covid-19 have been found to be sensitive and specific for the detection of novel coron- avirus antibodies in human serum samples and can be used for determining infection exposure among the general population, a study said. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked private hospitals whether they are ready to provide treatment to Covid-19 patients at the charges prescribed under the Ayushman Bharat Scheme. The Ayushman Bharat is aimed at providing health cover to poor and vulnerable persons. PTI A mid surge in coronavirus cases in Delhi, for the first time in the past two weeks the trend in recovery rate from the virus has fallen below 40 per cent in the national Capital. According to State health bulletin data, recovery rate of Covid-19 patients in the national Capital has gradually fallen in the last ten days to 39.58 per cent as reported in June 4 night health bulletin. Prior to that the rate var- ied from 48.18 per cent on May 25 to 40.35 per cent on June 3. On May 26, the rate fell marginally to 48.07 per cent, with a total of 14,465 cases being recorded on that day. The May 26 bulletin said there were 6,954 patients who had recovered, been discharged or migrated. The death toll on that day stood at 288.

ˆ ( !/ˆ ˘>ˇ˛ $˚) &)*+$,&-(.˜˛˚ ,˙($ ˇ˝ ˘ 9 4 9: 696 9 A 2,, 6 6 :2 2, 6 9 ... · 2020-06-05 · port and 57 lakh by trains. During the hearing, the ... Of the deaths

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Page 1: ˆ ( !/ˆ ˘>ˇ˛ $˚) &)*+$,&-(.˜˛˚ ,˙($ ˇ˝ ˘ 9 4 9: 696 9 A 2,, 6 6 :2 2, 6 9 ... · 2020-06-05 · port and 57 lakh by trains. During the hearing, the ... Of the deaths

����� ��������

The Supreme Court onThursday gave two-week

time to the Centre and theStates to complete the trans-portation of all strandedmigrant workers to their nativeplaces and fixed June 9 as thedate to pronounce its order onthe issue.

A Bench headed by JusticeAshok Bhushan was hearingthe matter in which it hadtaken suo motu cognisance onthe plight of migrant workerswho were stranded across thecountry due to the Covid-19lockdown.

The Centre informed thecourt on Friday that aroundone crore migrant workersacross the country have alreadyreached their destination —around 41 lakh by road trans-port and 57 lakh by trains.

During the hearing, theadvocates representing vari-ous States gave the figures ofmigrant workers as per which,over 11 lakh and 20.5 lakh peo-ple have gone back fromMaharashtra and Gujaratrespectively.

Counsel appearing forBihar and Uttar Pradeshinformed the SC they have sofar received 28 lakh and 21.69lakh migrants respectively.

Solicitor General TusharMehta informed the Bench,also comprising Justices SKKaul and MR Shah, that so far802 trains have been operatedfrom Maharashtra for trans-

porting migrant workers.Additional Solicitor

General Sanjay Jain, repre-senting the Delhi Government,told the top court that aroundtwo lakh workers are still in thenational Capital and onlyaround 10,000 of them haveexpressed their desire to returnto their native places.

The counsel appearing for

Gujarat told the SC that out ofaround 22 lakh migrant work-ers in the State, 20.5 lakh havealready been transported back.

Senior advocate PSNarasimha, appearing for UttarPradesh, said that around 5.50lakh migrants workers werebrought back into the Statefrom Delhi borders for whichbuses made over 10,000 trips.

The State Government toldthe Bench that 1,664 Shramiktrains were organised andaround 21.69 lakhs migrantworkers were brought back inUttar Pradesh.

It said they have sent backaround 1.35 lakh migrants,who were in Uttar Pradesh, and104 special trains were operat-ed for this.

The counsel appearing forthe Bihar Government toldthe court that around 28 lakhmigrant workers have returnedto the State. The lawyer saidthat the Bihar Government istaking steps to provide thememployment and so far, skillmapping of around 10 lakhmigrants has been done.

The counsel representingWest Bengal said that around3.97 lakh stranded migrants arein the State and relief campswere serving around one lakhmeals. The counsel said thatWest Bengal is more of a receiv-ing State and they will provideevery assistance which is need-ed to bring people back.

The counsel representingKerala said that around 4.34lakh migrants were there andover one lakh persons havealready been transported. TheKerala Government said 1.61lakh wanted to stay put.

When Kerala’s counsel saidthat Railways is under theCentral Government and theyshould take care of the cost ofreturn by migrants, the Benchsaid that all States must maketheir own arrangements.

����� ��������

Resource-starved as it is, theGovernment will not start

any new schemes for a year, theFinance Ministry said onFriday making it clear thatany spending will only beallowed in the Prime Minister’s“Garib Kalyan Package” and therecent announcements madeunder “the Atmanirbhar Bharatpackage”. No other schemewould be approved.

Schemes already approvedunder the Budget will also staysuspended till March 31, 2021.

The drastic move is totighten spending amid risingcoronavirus cases with no clar-ity on when the pandemic willpeak in the country.

“It may be appreciated thatin the wake of the Covid-19pandemic, there is an unprece-dented demand on publicfinancial resources and a needto use resources prudently inaccordance with emerging andchanging priorities,” the expen-diture department, under theFinance Ministry, said addingthat it has been receiving manynew proposals for in-principleapproval from various

Ministries or departments.All Ministries have been

told to stop sending requestsfor new schemes to the FinanceMinistry. Spending will only beallowed in the Prime Minister’sGarib Kalyan Package and theannouncements made underthe Atmanirbhar Bharat pack-age, it said.

“No new proposals for ascheme/sub-scheme should beinitiated this year (2020-21)except the proposalsannounced under the PradhanMantri Garib Kalyan Package,the Aatmanirbhar BharatAbhiyan package and any otherspecial package/announce-ment,” a Ministery note said.

Union Finance MinisterNirmala Sitaraman hadannounced �1.70 lakh crorePM Garib Kalyan package onMay 6 and 20 lakh croreAatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyanpackage on May 16 withemphasis on giving quick reliefto poor and small scale indus-tries and reviving economywith a new mantra of ‘swadeshi’and self-reliance.

����� ��������

India climbed to the sixth spotin the world table of worst-

hit coronavirus nations by leav-ing behind Italy after recordingthe fourth straight day of 9,000plus new cases on Friday. Nowthe US, Brazil, Russia, Spain,and the UK are ahead of it.

The country recorded9,045 new cases and 279 deathson Friday, which took its over-all count of new cases to2,35,767 and deaths to 6,642.

Maharashtra sank intodeep despair on Friday as theState recorded highest-everday’s tally of 139 deaths and asmany as 2,436 new infectedcases. With the fresh deathsand infections, the total num-ber of deaths rose to 2,849,while the total infected casesjumped to 80,229.

Taking into the total num-ber of deaths so far and the factthat 35,156 patients have beendischarged from various hos-pitals so far, the State healthauthorities pegged the numberof “active cases” at 42,215.

Of the deaths reported onFriday, Mumbai accounted for54 deaths, while there were 30deaths in Thane, 14 deaths eachin Pune and Jalgaon, eight

deaths in Malegaon, sevendeaths in Kalyan-Dombivli,five deaths in Ratnagiri, twodeaths each in Solapur andNashik, one death each inVasai-Virar -1, Bhiwandi, andAurangabad-1.

Tamil Nadu saw 1,438 per-sons testing positive for coro-navirus on Friday, the highestever number to be tested pos-itive on a single day.

With the addition of 1,438patients into the pool, TamilNadu has 12,697 active Covid-19 cases as on Friday. Till date28,694 persons have testedpositive for the pandemic in theState, according to a medicalbulletin by the Tamil NaduGovernment.

The death tally on Fridaywas 12 and this took the total

number of fatalities till date to232. Out of the 12 whobreathed their last on Friday,four were in the 80-82 age

group, three were in 70-72group, one was 68, two were 56and 50 years of age, and a 44-year-old person.

����������� ��������

Twenty people, who wereinfected by a housemaid,

have been found corona posi-tive in the Tarun Enclave ofPitampura area of Delhi. TheEnclave has now been declaredas a containment zone.

The entire area wasdeclared a containment zoneon June 3 as cases increased. Asa precautionary measure morethan 750 people ranging fromhouse number 130 to 340 inTarun Enclave has been askedto live in self-quarantine.

According to the DM, thefirst case of corona positive wasreported on May 24 and sincethen the 20 more cases havebeen registered here. It was onMay 24 the area was sealed.

The root cause of the coro-na spread has been located toa house where a maid used tocome regularly, infecting chil-dren and then all the people ofthe house got corona positive.

The area was sealed on 24May only after the coronapatients’ case surfaced and DC,North MCD were asked toundergo sanitation in thisregard.

On June 3, seeing the coro-na case increasing, the entirearea has been declared as a con-tainment zone.

It is reported that the coro-na infection has taken place inthis area from a house where a

maid used to come regularly.The children were infectedand then all the people of thehouse got infected.

The infection from chil-dren occurred to other childrenplaying in the colony and thenfrom those children to theirrespective families.

����� ���������

All eyes are now on thetalks on Saturday between

senior military commanders ofIndia and China on the Line ofActual Control(LAC) to defusenearly month-longmultiple face-offs inEastern Ladakh.India is firm onmutual and simultaneous pull-back of soldiers from the flash-points and an assurance fromChina to stop disrupting con-struction activities like roadsand infrastructure develop-ment near the LAC.

The talks will be heldbetween Leh-based 14 Corpschief Lt General Harinder andhis Chinese counterpart inChushul-Moldo. It is a mutu-ally-agreed Border PersonnelMeeting between the two coun-tries to resolve such con-tentious issues. The Indian

commander will cross over theLAC to meet the Chinesesenior commander.

This level of talks will takeplace after seven earlier meet-ings between local comman-

ders of two sidesfailed to break thedeadlock in the lastone fortnight. At pre-sent, the two armiesare in a stand-off at

four points in Eastern Ladakh.The frontage is between 20 and30 km but in small pocketswhere soldiers are in an eyeballto eyeball confrontation,sources said here on Friday.

Defence Minister RajnathSingh, while admitting thatChina had sizably increased itstroop strength on the LAC dur-ing the stand-offs, said twodays back he was hopeful thetalks at the Lt General level willpave the way for peaceful res-olution of the ongoing dispute.

����� ��

Bollywood producer AnilSuri, who had backed films

like Raaj Kumar-Rekha starrer“Karmayogi” and “Raaj Tilak”,passed away due to coron-avirus on Thursday. He was 77.

Anil’s brother, film pro-ducer Rajiv Suri, said he hadfever on June 2 but his condi-tion worsened the next daywith breathlessness. “He wasrushed to Lilavati and Hinduja,but both denied him a bed,”Rajiv claimed.

“He was then taken toAdvanced MultispecialityHospital on Wednesday night.He had Covid-19. OnThursday evening, they saidsomething is amiss and he wasput on ventilator.

He died around 7:00 pm,”said Rajiv. Last rites of Anilwere held on Friday morningat Oshiwara cremation ground.

�������������� ��������

For the first time, the Roadand Highway Ministry has

woken up to the need of reduc-ing animal mortality on Stateroads and national highways.For this purpose, the Ministryhas asked State Governmentsand other stakeholders ofwildlife and environment toassist it in identifying accidentblackspots.

The Ministry is alreadyrectifying identified blackspotsto curtail human fatality onhighways.

Sources said the Ministryhas asked the Central roadmaking agency NHAI and theStates to replicate the samemodel. This includes conduct-ing studies for road engineer-

ing favourable to animalmovement, constructingunderpasses, elevated corri-dors, via-ducts, cut and cover,guardwall, fencing, watchtow-er, solar pumps, ponds fordrinking water for animals.

“Similar exercises are beingundertaken in the forest area ofMP, Maharashtra, Odisha,Uttarakhand, as part of a cam-paign ‘Prevention of Humanand Animal Mortality onHighways’.

There is a need for gener-ating awareness and educatingfor the masses towards reduc-ing or eliminating both humanand animal fatality,” RoadTransport & HighwaysMinister Nitin Gadkari said.

��������� ������ ��������

Famous for Africa’s tallestmountain Kilimanjaro and

Serengeti National Park,Tanzania has a population ofaround 5.63 crore out of whichjust 509 are infected by thecoronavirus.

Known for its palm-fringed beaches, Liberia isanother African nation with anequally impoverished popula-tion of mere 48 lakh — theaverage age is just around 18 —of which only 311 have testedpositive.

Interestingly, both of thesecountries, like many othernations with minuscule coro-navirus outbreak on their soils,have admitted to communitytransmission — a state in whichthe disease becomes so wide-spread that one can’t pinpointthe source of infection, orwhere the contract-tracing was

not possible.Zoom to India, Russia, and

China — the three countries hithard by the virus. The worldhas rained obloquy on Chinaover its dubious claim of arrest-ing the growth of coronavirusat around 85,000 cases. Even ifthat number is accepted as

credible, China is placed as the18 worst affected nation in theworld, 12 places behind India(2.3 lakh cases), and 16 ranksbehind Russia (2.5 lakh pluscases).

Despite such a huge num-ber of cases, India, China, andRussia are the only three coun-

tries among the top 15 affect-ed nations that have deniedreaching the community trans-mission stage.

For its classification of thetransmission stage, the WorldHealth Organisation (WHO)relies solely on the reports itreceives from respective coun-

tries.Now, let’s go back to

Tanzania. The African nationhad just 480 positive coronacases on May 1. During the last33 days till June 3, it added atrickling of 29 cases. Similarly,Liberia had 152 confirmedcases on May 1.

In 33 days from then, itadded five cases every day toreach a figure of 316 on June 3.Both these countries are brack-eted with dozens of nationssuch as South Africa ( 35,000cases), Nigeria (10,819 cases)Algeria (9,626 cases), Ghana(8,297 cases) Cameroon (6,585cases) Guinea (3,886 cases)Senegal (3,836 cases) theDemocratic Republic of theCongo (3,325) Côte d’Ivoire(3,024) Gabon (2,803 cases)Kenya (2,093 cases) Mali (1,351cases), which have admitted tocommunity transmission.

Even in Europe, where thehealth system is far better thanAfrica and India, a majority ofthe countries have admitted toreaching the stage of commu-nity transmission.

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New Delhi: Indigenouslydeveloped ELISA testing kitsfor Covid-19 have been foundto be sensitive and specific forthe detection of novel coron-avirus antibodies in humanserum samples and can beused for determining infectionexposure among the generalpopulation, a study said.

!"��������#����� �$��������������������������������� ���%��$���&�����

New Delhi: The SupremeCourt on Friday asked privatehospitals whether they areready to provide treatment toCovid-19 patients at thecharges prescribed under theAyushman Bharat Scheme. TheAyushman Bharat is aimed atproviding health cover to poorand vulnerable persons. PTI

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Amid surge in coronaviruscases in Delhi, for the first

time in the past two weeks thetrend in recovery rate from thevirus has fallen below 40 percent in the national Capital.

According to State healthbulletin data, recovery rate ofCovid-19 patients in thenational Capital has graduallyfallen in the last ten days to39.58 per cent as reported inJune 4 night health bulletin.

Prior to that the rate var-ied from 48.18 per cent on May25 to 40.35 per cent on June 3.

On May 26, the rate fellmarginally to 48.07 per cent,with a total of 14,465 casesbeing recorded on that day. TheMay 26 bulletin said therewere 6,954 patients who hadrecovered, been discharged ormigrated. The death toll on thatday stood at 288.

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Rejecting the so-called reformsannounced by the Central

Government for the agriculturesector as yet another brazenattempt to erode and destabilizethe country’s federal structure,Punjab Chief Minister CaptAmarinder Singh on Fridaywarned that it could pave way fordisbanding the MSP regime aswell as the foodgrain procure-ment regime, triggering unrestamong the state’s farmers.

Strongly opposing theCentre’s move to suppress therights of the States, as enshrinedunder the Indian Constitution,

the Chief Minister said thatPunjab would fight any steps onthe part of the CentralGovernment to weaken thefederal structure of the countrythrough such direct and detri-mental interference in the well-established agriculture producemarketing system of the State.

“Such a measure shallseverely and adversely impactthe nation’s food security,which Punjab’s hard workingand selfless farmers have sus-tained ever since the green rev-olution,” he warned.

Pointing out that the coun-try’s federal structure envisageswell-defined roles and respon-sibilities for the Centre and thestates, Capt Amarinder saidthat under the Constitutionalframework, agriculture is aState subject, and “the UnionGovernment has no powers tomake any legislation to dealwith the dynamics of agricul-tural production, marketingand processing”.

These are State matters,which individual States are bestplaced to handle and manage,

he said, describing the ‘FarmingProduce, Trade and Commerce(Promotion and Facilitation)Ordinance, 2020’ as a “highlyill-conceived move” on the partof the Central Government.

The Chief Minister said,“The move would damagePunjab…The Centre’s habit oftaking sudden decisions andforcing them on states, withouttaking their views into account,is violative of the very federalframework.”

“Centre’s such actions dur-ing the Covid pandemic crisiscan have serious economic,social and law and order con-sequences. Farmers will notgain but will actually suffer atthe hands of traders due to leg-islative change.

The Centre has not evencreated any dispute redressalmechanism, and had not con-sulted the State Governments,which would be left to handlethe consequences of this hastyaction,” said Capt Amarinder.

Citing the well-oiled agri-culture produce marketing sys-tem in Punjab, the Chief

Minister said that presently, theentire trade of agriculture pro-duce is carried out within thenotified markets or mandiyards through a system licensedunder ‘The Punjab AgriculturalProduce Markets Act, 1961(APMC Act)’,.

“The Government hasalready made necessaryamendments to the PunjabAPMC Act to provide for set-ting up of regulated mandiseven in private sector for spe-cific produces.

In fact, sale-purchase ofabout �80,000 crore is trans-acted annually in Punjab’s mar-ket yards, which effectivelysupport 65 percent of the State’spopulation that is dependenton agriculture and agro pro-duce,” he pointed adding thatas such, there is no further needof a Central Law to interferewith already existing well estab-lished marketing system inPunjab.

SAD ensured MSP, assuredmarketing will continue

Declaring that the

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)would never compromise on theissue of Minimum Support Price(MSP) and assured marketingfor farmers’ produce, especiallyfor paddy and wheat, the partypresident Sukhbir Singh Badalon Friday made it clear that SADhas already ensured that the pre-sent assured marketing andMSP regime for the farmers’produce will continue.

Sukhbir minced no wordsto say that Punjab ChiefMinister Capt AmarinderSingh “lied in broad daylight onthe issue of the APMC. He has,in fact, already given his assentto the main provisions of theAct on August 14, 2017”.

“Let there be no confusionon this. SAD will never toler-ate any deviation from theprinciple of assured marketingand MSP. We have alreadyensured that there are no com-promises on these issues in theAct,” said Sukhbir.

“Federalism and interestsof the panth, Punjab and thefarmers form the four pillars onwhich the edifice of theShiromani Akali Dal standsand there will never be anycompromise on any one ofthese.

No sacrifice is too high forus for protecting these pillarsthrough peaceful democraticways. Nothing is dearer to usthan our principles on theseissues,” he said adding thatfarmers form the backbone of

Punjab and SAD.He said that SAD has

already ensured that the newAPMC Act provides adequate,inbuilt, and foolproof guaran-tees for the continuation ofMSP and assured marketingregime on a long term basis.

“We have ensured that thisregime will continue in its pre-sent form, in addition to open-ing up new possibilities andcreating new platform toincrease competition for thefarmers produce”, he said.

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Restaurants, hotels, shop-ping malls and religious

places will be allowed to re-open from June 8 inChandigarh. The ChandigarhAdministration on Friday cir-culated the standard operatingprocedure issued by CentralGovernment for hospitalityservices and religious places toensure Covid-19 safety proto-cols.

Manoj Parida, Adviser toUT Administrator said that asdecided by Government ofIndia, all shopping malls, reli-gious places, hotels and restau-rants will be opened from June8 onwards in the union terri-tory of Chandigarh. For this,the Standard OperatingProcedures (SOPs) is alreadycirculated by HealthDepartment and will be strict-ly enforced, he said.

As per the SOPs, adequatecrowd and queue managementis to be ensured in hotels andrestaurants. Not more than 50per cent of seating capacityshould be permitted. Staff or

waiters should wear mask andhand gloves. Seating arrange-ment should ensure adequatesocial distancing betweenpatrons as far as feasible.Contactless mode of orderingand digital mode of paymentshould be encouraged.

Tables should be sanitisedeach time a customer leaves, theSOP stated

Under unlock 1.0, theAdministration had on Mondayannounced a slew of relax-ations, including opening ofbarber shops and salons,extending shop timings by twohours and opening of shoppingmalls, restaurants, hotels andreligious places.

While earlier the shopstimings were staggered, and formost shops it was between 10am to 6 pm, now the shops areallowed to open from 10 am to8 pm in the city.

FIXED ELECTRICITYCHARGES WAIVED OFFFOR 2 MONTHS INCHANDIGARH

Giving a relief to city resi-dents, the Chandigarh

Administration on Fridaydecided to waive off 25 percentof the fixed electricity chargesfor two and half months uptoJune 15 for all categories ofconsumers.

The decision was takenduring the meeting held byPunjab Governor and UTAdministrator VP SinghBandore. The fixed charges arebeing charged separately, overand above the consumptioncharges. These charges rangefrom �30/kW/month to�200/kW/month.

Of the 2.25 lakh powerconsumers, 1.75 lakh are resi-dential users in the city. Manyconsumers including com-mercial are facing financialcrisis due to lockdown amidCoronavirus pandemic.

The city’s industry andbusiness establishments, bear-ing the brunt due to lockdownhad demanded waiver of fixedcharges, fuel and power pur-chase cost adjustment (FPPCA)charges and other charges inelectricity bills for entire finan-cial year 2020-21. Recently, theJoint Electricity Regulatory

Commission had approved nohike in power tariff for finan-cial year 2020-21 in the city.

UT ASKS NEIGHBOURINGSTATES NOT TO SENDPATIENTS WITHOUTTESTING

UT Administrator VPSingh Badnore on Fridaydirected the Administrationto ensure that the neighboringstates do not send patients toChandigarh without testing.He asked UT PrincipalSecretary Health to inform theneighbouring states not to sendpatients to Chandigarh withoutprior Covid-19 testing, so thatinter-state infection is avoided.

During the meeting, it wasinformed that GMSH- Sector16 had dealt with 4,000 OPDcases on Thursday. He desiredthat all medical institutionsmust gradually enhance theirOPD services, so that normal-cy in medical services could berestored.

LONG ROUTE BUSES TOBEGIN FROM JUNE 8

Chandigarh Transport

Undertaking is all set to start itslong route bus operation fromJune 6 onwards subject to per-mission from ChandigarhAdministration from ISBT-43.Buses will be operated frompoint to point i.e. source (ori-gin) to destination station with50 percent passengers capaci-ty and no boarding or de-boarding of passengers en-route the journey will beallowed, said an officialspokesman.

Passengers can book theirtickets only through onlinebus reservation managementsystem. No night bus service isplanned as of now, he said.

As a preventive measure,thermal screening of passen-gers will be done at ISBT-43,buses will be operated with 50percent occupancy only, sani-tization of the buses will bedone twice at start of trip andend of the trip, the spokesmanadded. Last month, the CTUhad started bus service in thetricity.

FINES RANGING FROM�500-3000 IN CHD FOR

VIOLATING COVID-19SAFETY NORMS

People violating the Covid-19 safety protocols will nowhave to shell anything between�500 to �3000 as penalty in theunion territory of Chandigarh.

Earlier on June 2, theAdministration had decidedto slap a fine of �500 on resi-dents not wearing a mask inpublic places. From nowonwards, the residents violatingthe home quarantine instruc-tions will have to pay a fine of�2000.

For spitting at publicplaces, the violators will befined �500, stated the UT’s lat-est order. For violation of socialdistancing norms by owners ofshops and commercial places,they will be charged �500 fine.

Apart from this, for viola-tion of social distancing normsby bus owners, they will befined �3000. A fine of �2000will be imposed on car ownersfor the violation of social dis-tancing protocol while auto-rickshaw owners and two-wheelers, will have to pay �500as penalty.

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Punjab Chief Minister CaptAmarinder Singh on Friday

minced no words to say that theliquor was sold “clandestinely”in the State even during the cur-few restrictions, while main-taining that the same was notpossible without the involve-ment of Excise Department.

Maintaining that he hasreceived a report on all illegal-ities by liquor vends and distil-leries, the Chief Ministerannounced setting up of aSpecial Investigation Team (SIT)to thoroughly probe the illicitsale and smuggling of liquorduring the lockdown period.

“I have all the reports, whohave been doing this and who’snot been doing this. I have thereport of all incidents…You arecorrect, during curfew due toCovid pandemic, vends wereclosed but the liquor was beingsold from the backdoor…youwon’t believe that lakhs of laa-han, desi liquor was also being

sold,” said Capt Amarinderadding that the same could nothappen “without exciseinvolvement”.

“We will conduct full inves-tigation…check every distillery,and take account of theirstocks,” he added.

Promising strict actionagainst all those involved, theChief Minister said that thethree-member SIT will beheaded by Water ResourcesMinister Sukhbinder SinghSarkaria, and will undertakethorough investigations intothe whole racket.

Admitting that such large-scale illicit sale of liquor andsmuggling from other statescould not have been possiblewith involvement of some insid-ers, Capt Amarinder said that afull-fledged probe would beconducted by SIT to ascertain allfacts, including complicity ofExcise Department officials.“All those involved, includingthe kingpins, will be identifiedand arrested,” he added.

SIT WOULD GET TO THEBOTTOM OF SEED SCAM

On the possible involve-ment of the official machineryin the alleged seed scam, theChief Minister said that thematter was being probed indetail by the SIT headed by anADGP level officer along witha Joint Director of AgricultureDepartment.

“PAU had produced near-ly 3000 quintals of PR 128 and129 varieties of paddy seed ontrial basis, whereas 30,000quintals had been sold in theopen market, to farmers, byunscrupulous dealers. Thisclearly indicated that spuriousseeds were also mixed to thesenew varieties to fleece innocentfarmers, and the SIT would getto the bottom of the scam,” headded.

PUNJAB TO APPEALAGAINST HC RULING ONSCHOOL FEE

The Chief Minister hasdeclared that the Government

will appeal against the Punjaband Haryana High Court rul-ing allowing private schools tocharge fee from students for thelockdown period.

On the charging of fees byschools during the lockdownperiod, the Chief Minister saidthat the Government had takenthe right decision by restrictingprivate schools from chargingany fee when students were notbeing taught by schools. “It isunfair to charge fee from par-ents when schools are closed,”he said, adding that the Statewould soon file a review peti-tion against the High Courtorder on this issue.

Asserting that the healthand safety of the children wasof paramount importance, theChief Minister also ruled outopening of schools withoutgetting a clean chit from med-ical experts.

TAKE TOUGH STAND ONCHINA: CAPT URGES CEN-TRE

While not advocating war,Capt Amarinder urged theCentre to take a tough stand onthe continuing border stand-offwith China if the neighbouringcountry was not responding todiplomatic efforts to resolve theissue.

“My position on standoffwith China in Ladakh is clear.Chinese should immediatelyvacate Indian territory and thematter should be resolveddiplomatically. However, ifdiplomatic efforts fail, UnionGovernment should take atough stand on our bor-ders….Assi Pith Nahi Dikhani(we cannot turn our back),”said the Chief Minister.CENTRE HAS FAILED US INTHIS CRISIS: CAPT

Regretting that theGovernment of India had failedto provide any help to thesmall states in fighting theimpact of Covid outbreak andprolonged lockdown, CaptAmarinder said that it was theCentre’s duty to come forward

in fighting this national battleand help the states revive theirbattered economies.

Even though Punjab wason top of the Covid situationand had managed to controlthe medical aspect of the prob-lem to a great extent, econom-ic revival would require sup-port from the CentralGovernment, he said.

At the moment, all steps torestart the economic activity inPunjab were purely the result ofthe state government’s ownefforts, said CaptainAmarinder, describing theCentre’s present attitude as asad state of affairs.

Pointing to the condition-al increase in the borrowinglimit of GSDP, he said: “By cur-tailing the state’s rights, theCentral Government has negat-ed the benefit of even theminiscule and delayed financialhelp it had extended.”

‘GOVT TAKING INITIA-TIVES FOR ECONOMIC

REVIVAL’On the initiatives being

taken by the state to revive itseconomy amid Covid-19, theChief Minister said that near-ly �24,000 crore has beenpumped into rural economy asa result of the bumper wheatcrop during the just conclud-ed Rabi season.

Further, Capt Amarinderrevealed that of the total 2.56lakh industrial units in theState, all but 20,000 hadresumed operations. However,the industry in Punjab wouldtake some time to run to itsoptimum level, he said, urgingthe Central Government tobail out the small and mediumindustries, in particular, in thisdifficult time.

‘MORE THAN FIVE LAKHMIGRANTS STAYED BACK’

He pointed out that of11.50 lakh of those who hadapplied to return to theirhomes, more than five lakh haddecided to stay back in Punjab

with the opening of the indus-tries. “Many are also now want-ing to come back to Punjabfrom states like Bihar and UPto resume work,” he said addingthat the labourers who hadgone back to their homes weretalking of the care taken by thePunjab Government, with thesupport of the police, NGOs,religious organisations etc.

The State Government,said Capt Amarinder, had beendoing its best despite the mea-ger resources at its disposal.

Regarding shortage oflabour during the paddy sow-ing season, Capt Amarinderthat in his season, nearly 30percent of paddy had beensown through direct seeding,which is less labour intensiveand more cost-effective.

“The industry is also takinginitiatives, such as pay hikes, toretain labour. However, it is thesmall industry, which hires themajority of the migrant work-ers, that needs immediate sup-port for revival,” he added.

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Haryana Chief MinisterManohar Lal Khattar on

Friday launched HaryanaUdhyam Memorandum(HUM) portal to provide aunique identification to allenterprises whether shops,MSMEs, large and mega indus-tries to enable permissions andservices to be provided acrossall of Government in an inte-grated manner.

The HUM portal will alsoenable registration of labourengaged by the enterprises cre-ating a database of all theemployees engaged in indus-trial enterprises in Haryana.

The database will alsoobtain details of migrant work-ers given the experience of therecent pandemic. The HUMunique id would form the pri-mary key for integrating ser-vices and data in respect ofHaryana and enable betterplanning and support.

Deputy Chief MinisterDushyant Chautala who alsoholds the portfolio of Industriesand Commerce and Labourand Employment Departmentswas also present on this occa-sion. Haryana UdhyamMemorandum is a unique ini-tiative of the State Governmentdeveloped with the collabora-tion of Citizen ResourceInformation Department(CRID) and Departments ofIndustry and Commerce andLabour and Employment.

It was informed in themeeting that the H.U.M portalhas been developed in line ofvision of Chief Minister, MrManohar Lal of bringing alltypes of industries – micro,small, medium and large enter-prises registered in Haryana ona single platform. A uniqueH.U.M number would beissued to every industry regis-

tering on this portal. It is a userfriendly portal and for regis-tration, the industries arerequired to fill up basic details.The registered enterpriseswould also have to upload thebasic details of their employeesengaged in the enterprises.

While appreciating thisunique initiative, the ChiefMinister said that it wouldhelp creating a complete data-base of all types of industriesregistered in Haryana as well asemployees working in it. Thedatabase so generated wouldhelp the state government informulating welfare policies inthe times to come. He alsodirected that HaryanaEnterprises Promotion Centre(HEPC) portal and portal ofthe Labour Department shouldalso be integrated with H.U.Mportal so that H.U.M ID ismandatory for all applicationsin respect of service providedon the HEPC portal or byLabour Department on theirportal.

Khatta said that industryregistering on the H.UM.Portal should also be providedaccess to the ‘Saksham YuvaPortal’ of the State Governmentso that they could hire candi-dates according to their indus-try requirement. This wouldalso help in providing maxi-mum employment opportuni-ties to the youth of the State, headded.

The Chief Minister direct-ed that SMS should be sent atthe earliest to all about 50,000employees of different indus-tries in the State who havesought permission for move-ment to other States duringCovid-19 so that they couldregister themselves on the por-tal. For any query or informa-tion, one could also contact thetoll-free number 1800-200-0023.

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Haryana on Friday reported316 new cases of novel

corona virus, 153 fromGurugram alone, raising thetotal of infected cases to 3,597.Faridabad accounted for 59cases, the second highest dis-trict of the State followed by 22new cases in Charkhi Dadri.

Meanwhile, 86 patientshave recovered from varioushospitals of the State over thelast 24 hours on Friday. TheState has a recovery rate of33.61 per cent, fatality rate at0.67 per cent while tests permillion being conducted are5,422. The doubling rate in theState is six days.

With 1209 people curedand discharged from the hos-pitals, there are 2, 364 activeCovid-19 cases in Haryananow.

Gurugram total of thedeadly disease is now 1563.Faridabad reported 59 newcase of the deadly disease, tak-ing the total in the district to581.

Jhajjar reported two newCovid cases, taking tally to 107.Nuh reported three more cases,taking total to 85. Six morecorona virus case reported inAmbala, taking total to 76.Palwal reported 14 more cases,taking the tally to 100. Onemore case reported in Panipat,taking total to 67. Panchkulareported one more case, takingtotal to 28. Two new casesreported in Jind, taking countto 35.

Karnal reported sevenmore cases, taking count to 81.Two more case has beenreported in Sirsa, taking totalto 50. Three more cases report-ed in Fatehabad, talking total to30. Four more cases have beenreported in Rohtak, takingtotal to 114.

Nanaul reported four morecases, taking total to 77. Hisarreported nine more case, tak-ing the tally to 78. 11 morecases have been reported inRewari, taking total to 45.Charkhi Dadri reported 22more cases, taking count to 35.One more cases reported in

Kaithal, taking total to 34.Kurukshetra reported 12 morecases, taking total to 49.According to officials, a total of86 Covid patients were dis-charged from various districtsincluding 40 in Gurugram,three in Faridabad, three inAmbala, 11 in Karnal, one inFatehabad, 12 in Narnaul, 10 inHisar, one in Kaithal and fivein Kurukshetra.

6 NEW CASES TAKEHIMACHAL TALLY TO 390

Six more people, includinga couple and a 40-year old manwho recently returned fromDelhi, tested positive for coro-navirus in Himachal Pradeshon Friday, taking the totalnumber of Covid-19 cases inthe state to 390.

While three fresh caseswere reported from Kangradistrict, two were detected fromHamirpur district and one fromShimla district, SpecialSecretary (Health) Nipun Jindalsaid. He said eight patients---sixin Hamirpur and two inKangra, recovered from diseaseon Friday. In Kangra, all thethree fresh cases returned fromDelhi on May 27, a district offi-cial said.

A 34-year-old man andhis 31-year-old wife fromMinjgram in Nurpur tehsil inKangra tested positive onFriday, he said adding thattheir two-year-old son hadearlier tested positive and wasadmitted at the BaijnathDedicated Covid care centre(DCCC). Similarly, a 40-year-old man from Kulhan village inNurpur tehsil also tested pos-itive. His son had also testedpositive earlier and was admit-ted at Baijnath DCCC, he said.Meanwhile two persons inKangra district, including a42-year-old man from Barohalvillage in Panchrukhi tehsiland a 35-year-old man fromSarguni village in Palampurtehsil recovered from the virus,he added.

Additional Chief Secretary(Health) R D Dhiman said thenumber of active patients in thestate is 197. As many as 187patients have recovered so far,

he added.So far, six people have suc-

cumbed to the virus inHimachal Pradesh. Hamirpurhas the highest number ofactive cases in the state at 64,followed by 50 in Kangra, 17 inSolan, 15 each in Una andChamba, 11 in Bilaspur, 10 inMandi, eight in Sirmaur, threein Shimla, and two each inKinnaur and Kullu. PTI

SEVEN CASES IN CHANDI-GARH, TALLY 309

Seven fresh cases ofCoronavirus were reported onFriday in the city, taking thetotal tally to 309. Six positivecases were reported from BapuDham colony while one wasreported from Sector 21 here.

“Seven new cases havebeen reported on Friday. Sixcases from Bapu Dham colonyinclude a three year old femalechild, two boys aged 10 yearseach, a 14 years old boy, a 35years old woman and a 40 yearsold man. All are the contacts ofalready positive Covid-19 case,”stated the Chandigarh HealthD e p a r t m e n t ’ sbulletin.

“A 57 years old woman, aresident of Sector 21 is also test-ed positive for Covid-19. She hastwo family contacts and threecommunity contacts,” the bul-letin stated. Apart from this, 50residents of Bapu Dham colony,Sector-26 have been cured andshifted to post discharge quar-antine facility at SoodDharmshala. The Bapu Dhamcolony in Sector 26 here has tillnow reported 232 cases, whichaccounts for more than 75 per-cent of the total cases inChandigarh. The city has report-ed a total of 309 cases out ofwhich 31 are active. 273 are treat-ed and cured, the bulletin added.Chandigarh has reported fiveCoronavirus related deaths.

Meanwhile, ChandigarhAdministration on Friday tookSector 30-B off the list of con-tainment zones in the city.With this, Chandigarh nowhas two containment zonesincluding pockets of BapuDham colony in Sector 26 andKacchi colony Dhanas.

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Avideo showing Tik Tokstar and BJP leader Sonali

Phogat slapping a MarketCommittee official from Hisarand later beating him with aslipper for reportedly makingderogatory remarks againsther, went viral on social mediaon Friday. In the video, the BJPleader from Adampur in Hisaris seen slapping the official andlater hitting him with her slip-per in full public view.

Phogat and others presentwith her are not seen wearingmasks in the video, even as theHaryana Government has

made it mandatory to wearmasks in public in the wake ofcoronavirus pandemic.

Sharing the video on hisTwitter handle, Congress chiefspokesperson Randeep SinghSurjewala said, “Exploits ofthe leaders of the KhattarGovernment.

The BJP leader fromAdampur in Hisar is beatingthe Market Committee officiallike animals. “Is doing govern-ment job a crime? Will (ChiefMinister) Khattar take action?Will the media still remainsilent?” he tweeted.

The BJP leader, however,told media persons in Hisar

that she had gone to meet theofficials of the district MarketCommittee on Friday pertain-ing to some grievance of farm-ers. She said an official wasshowing her the place in theBalsamand area of Hisar dis-trict where a shed could comeup for the convenience of farm-ers when he started passingindecent and derogatoryremarks against her.

Phogat claimed the officialalso made some commentsagainst another woman officialof the Market Committee anda woman minister in theManohar Lal Khattar-led cab-inet.

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As one more corona positivepatient from Tarn Taran

succumbed to the deadly conta-gion on Friday, the state report-ed 46 fresh cases, taking thestate’s Covid-19 death tally to 48and that of positive cases to 2461.

As many 26 more patients— 14 from Amritsar, five fromMoga, three from Ludhiana,two from Pathankot, one eachfrom Tarn Taran and SASNagar (Mohali) — recoveredfrom the novel coronavirus,leaving just 344 active cases. Inall, 2,069 patients have recov-ered in the State till date.

Of the 46 cases, more thanhalf were the contacts of thealready diagnosed positivecases, besides five of thosewho have returned to Punjabfrom other states or countries.

Maximum 16 cases werereported from Ludhiana, ofwhich 12 are the contacts ofpositive cases, two are the newcases of Influenza Like Illness(ILI), while the source of infec-tion of remaining two areunknown as of now.

Jalandhar reported eightfresh cases of which four arethe contacts of positive case,

while four are new cases withno contact or travel history.Amritsar also reported threecases, all of which are the con-tacts of positive cases.

SAS Nagar (Mohali) hasreported four new coronaviruscases, taking the district’s tallyto 127. Three of the four werecontacts of already diagnosedcases and one was classified asa new case of a 61-year-oldfrom Sector 70.

The three patients fromSector 78 were the wife, moth-er and father of an already diag-nosed patient from Sector 78with a travel history of Delhi.

Gurdaspur has reportedthree cases, of which two arethe contacts of positive case,while one is the new case.Kapurthala and Tarn Taranreported two cases each, WhileKapurthala’s both cases werenew with no travel or contacthistory, Tarn Taran’s one casehas travel history, while anoth-er was a new case.

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The Maharaja apparentlywants the “kingmaker” for

his coronation after winningthe battle for him. Into thefourth year of his reign inPunjab, Capt Amarinder Singh— it appears — is inclined tohave political strategistPrashant Kishor to devise astrategy for his party to retainpower in the State after mak-ing clear his intent to fight thepolitical battle again in 2022.

His desire is not withoutopposition. Even as the ChiefMinister claimed that majori-ty of the legislators are infavour of taking Kishor onboard, the State party chiefSunil Kumar Jakhar and stateparty affairs’ in-charge AshaKumari have expressed theirreservations for the same.

At the same time, he rub-bished reports of Kishor beingin talks with Congress leaderNavjot Singh Sidhu or theAam Aadmi Party (AAP),claiming that the poll strategistwas “open to handle PunjabCongress electioneering”.

“Kishor has respondedpositively to my request. Kishorhas said that he would be quitehappy to come and help,” saidCapt Amarinder, clearing theair on this count, amid media

reports that Kishor had said noto handling the Congress cam-paign in Punjab.

Quipping that he is oftensurprised by what he reads inthe newspapers, the ChiefMinister said that he had dis-cussed the matter with AICCpresident Sonia Gandhi, whohad left the decision (of hiringKishor) on him. “I have alsotaken the party MLAs into con-fidence, and 55 of the 80 mem-bers of the legislative assemblyare in favour of bringing inKishor to handle the campaign,”said Capt Amarinder.

Showing his willingness tosupport the Punjab Congress,Kishor had denied that he wasin any talks with Sidhu or theAAP with regard to 2022Assembly elections, CaptAmarinder said.

Describing Kishor as afamily member, the ChiefMinister said that he had ruledout any association with eitherSidhu or AAP, contrary tospeculation in the media, andcontrary to any claims on thiscount by Arvind Kejriwal.

On Sidhu’s interactionswith the Congress leadership,Capt Amarinder said that thecricketer-turned-politician wasvery much a part of theCongress and had been intouch with the party high com-mand in that capacity.

Capt Amarinder also reiter-ated his intention to contest thenext Assembly elections in theState, but said that the decisionon leading the party rested withthe Congress national president.

“Though I had initiallytermed the 2017 polls as my lastelection, I had subsequently, onthe persuasion of my party col-leagues, announced my deci-sion to contest the 2022 elec-tions, and there is no change inthat stance,” he added.

Capt Amarinder also statedthat Sidhu or any other Congressmember who had any concernson any issue could come and talkto him. “Investigations inBargari and other sacrilege casesare in progress but we cannotjust put people behind barswithout following the dueprocess of law,” he said, referringto Sidhu’s purported criticalremarks on the issue.

Many challans have beenpresented in the Bargari case,but the State Government can-not interfere in the work of thecourts, he added.

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Union Home Ministry isseeking to procure

arms/ammunition from pri-vate firms besides State-runOrdnance Factory Board(OFB) for the Central para-military forces and CentralPolice Organisations.

A meeting was held viavideo conferencing last Fridaywith at least 17 private firms andthe Ministry may float tendersto procure such items from non-state players, sources said.

The meeting under the sub-ject head “Procurement of Armsand Ammunition byCAPFs/CPOs from PrivateDomestic Manufacturers” was

held under the chairmanship ofMinister of State in the HomeMinistry G Kishan Reddy withprivate sector industries havinglicence for manufacturingarms/ammunition. The meetingwas held to explore the possi-bilities to enhance the procure-ment of these items from privatecompanies besides the OFB.

The Central Armed PoliceForces (CAPFs) or the Centralparamilitary forces with a com-bined manpower of about 10lakh include the BorderSecurity Force (BSF), CentralReserve Police Force (CRPF),Central Industrial SecurityForce (CISF), Sashastra SeemaBal (SSB), Indo-Tibetan BorderPolice (ITBP), National

Security Guards (NSG) andAssam Rifles. The CPOsinclude organisations underthe Home Ministry like Bureauof Police Research and

Development (BPR&D). TheCAPF and CPOs were also rep-resented in the meeting.

The online meeting con-nected to 40 locations locations

across the country also hadparticipation from industrybodies like ASSOCHAM, CII,FICCI and PH DCCI besidesrepresentatives of the domestic

arms/ammunition industry.The list of invited compa-

nies with industrial licence tomanufacture arms/ammuni-tion included IndtechConstruction Pvt Ltd (smallarms and ammunition like 5.56mm, 7.62 mm, 9 mm, 12.7 mmand 14.5 mm calibre)Larsen &Toubro Ltd (armament includ-ing ammunition/ordnance likemissiles, rockets and torpedoland/naval mines), VemTechnologies Pvt Ltd.(Assembly, Integration &checkout of arms and ammu-nition, rockets and missiles),Sec Industries Pvt Ltd. (staticand mobile launchers for airlaunch missiles of short, medi-um and long range, rockets,

bombs & ammunitions) and Hyt Engineering CompanyPvt Ltd (manufacture of shells for ammunition of vari-ous calibres).

Others companies includ-ed Godrej & BoyceManufacturing CompanyLtd(empty shells and requiredfuses for ammunition andexplosive such as bombs,mines, missiles and torpedoesexcluding the filling of explo-sives), Lords Vanijya Pvt Ltd(manufacture and assembly ofammunition, empty fuses,primers and switches), MicronInstrument Pvt Ltd (weaponsystems like mortars, rocketlaunchers, grenade launchersand missile launchers besides

ammunition for anti-aircraftguns, artillery guns, tank gunsetc as also sub assembliesweapon systems).

The list also includedPremier Explosives Ltd, BFElbit Advanced Systems PvtLtd, Solar Industries India Ltd,Kalyani Strategic System Ltd,Himachal FuturisticCommunication Ltd,Continental Defence SolutionsPvt Ltd, Shan Arms IndustriesPvt Ltd, Pipav Defence andOffshore EngineeringCompany Ltd and HughesPrecision Manufacturing Ltd.

An official privy to the dis-cussions said tendering forprocurement of these itemsoutside OFB.

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The Congress on Fridayannounced veteran party

leader Mallikarjun Kharge as itscandidate for the June 19 elec-tions to the four Rajya Sabhaseats from Karnataka.“Congress President SoniaGandhi has approved the can-didature of Mallikarjun Khargeas Congress candidate for theensuing biennial elections tothe Rajya Sabha fromKarnataka,” All India CongressCommittee Press release said.

The four seats representedby Rajeev Gowda and BKHariprasad of the Congress,Prabhakar Kore of the BJPand D Kupendra Reddy of theJD(S) will fall vacant on June 25with their retirement. June 9 isthe last date for filing nomina-tions. The Congress, with 68MLAs in the Assembly, can winone of the four seats easily onits own, so Kharge’s victory issaid to be certain.

Kharge, who was popular-ly known as “solillada Saradara”,(a leader without defeat) facedhis first electoral loss in hispolitical life spanning severaldecades against BJP’s UmeshJadhav in Gulbarga by a mar-gin of 95,452 votes in the 2019Lok Sabha polls.

A nine-time MLA andtwo-term Lok Sabha member,he had served as Congress’floor leader in the previous LokSabha, and also as Union

Railway and Labour Ministerin the UPA Government.Kharge (77) had also been aMinister in several CongressGovernments in the State in thepast and had also served asKPCC president and Leader ofthe Opposition in theKarnataka Assembly.

His son Priyank Kharge iscurrently MLA representingChittapur constituency andhad served as a Minister dur-ing the previous Congress andcoalition Governments.

While the ruling BJP with117 members (includingSpeaker), can ensure victory intwo seats, the JD(S), with just 34seats in the Assembly, is not ina position to win a seat in theRajya Sabha on its own, as aminimum of 44 votes arerequired for a candidate to win.

Speculations are rife that theCongress is likely to support theJD(S) with its surplus votes forthe remaining one seat if theregional party fields its supremoand former Prime Minister HDDeve Gowda, and in return mayseek favour during the legisla-tive council polls slated later thismonth. No final decision hasbeen taken in this regard yet,party sources said.

The JD(S) will hold its leg-islative party meeting to decideon the strategy for RS polls anddecide on a candidate. The BJPtoo, with several aspirants, isyet to finalise its candidate forthe RS polls.

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The Indian Council ofMedical Research (ICMR)

has validated IgG Elisa kits ofthree companies — Gujarat-based Zydus Cadila HealthcareLtd, Euroimmun US Inc andCalbiotech Inc, both from theUSA to conduct sero-survey tomeasure Covid-19 exposurein the vulnerable populationlike healthcare workers, front-line workers and people livingin containment zones.

The IgG ELISA kits are thefirst indigenous antibody detec-tion kits for coronavirus.

Zydus had licensed theCovid Kavach Elisa IgG test kitdeveloped by the ICMR. Themedical research body hadearlier claimed that its test kithas an impressive 100 per centspecificity and 98 per centsensitivity.

Three batches of ‘CovidKavach ELISA IgG kits’ devel-oped by Zydus CadilaHealthcare Ltd, one batch ofEuroimmun Anti- SARS-COV-2 ELISA IgG by EuroimmunUS Inc, USA, and a batch ofErbalisa Covid-19 IgG ELISAmanufactured by CalbiotechInc, USA have been approved.

The ICMR said “responsi-bility for batch to batch con-sistency lies with the manu-facturer”.

“Depending upon the levelof sero-prevalence of infec-

tion, matching public healthinterventions can be imple-mented for prevention andcontrol of the disease,” theresearch body said.

Further, it should be usedfor survey in high-risk or vul-nerable populations like health-care workers, frontline workers,immune-compromised indi-viduals, individuals in con-tainment zones, to know whohave been infected in the pastand have now recovered.

The ICMR has also pro-vided details of seven pharmacompanies to whom it hastransferred the technology toundertake the production ofindigenous Covid Kavach

ELISA IgG kits which help inthe antibody detection forCovid-19. These test kits havethe advantage of testing 90samples in a single run of 2.5hours so that healthcare pro-fessionals can proceed quicklywith the necessary next steps.

“The ELISA tests havebeen validated in the laborato-ry. However, the performanceof the test may be subject tovariation under field condi-tions,” the ICMR added.

The IgG ELISA/CLIA testswhich are US-FDA approvedcan be used directly after duemarketing approval from theDrugs Controller General ofIndia (DCGI).

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The India MeteorologicalDepartment (IMD) on

Friday said rainfall activity incentral and south India is like-ly to pick up pace from nextweek due to a cyclonic circu-lation which is likely to formover the Bay of Bengal and aidin the progress of the monsoon.

The low pressure area willform somewhere near the coastof Myanmar. A low pressurearea is the first stage of acyclonic disturbance; not alllow pressure areas intensifyinto cyclones.

IMD director generalMrutunjay Mohapatra said alow pressure area is likely toform over the Bay of Bengaland move towards Odisha nextweek. “A low pressure is acyclonic circulation and the

first stage of any cyclone.However, it is not necessarythat every low pressure inten-sifies into a cyclone. This will help advance mon-soon and bring good rainfallduring the next week,”Mohapatra said.

In its tropical cyclones bul-letin dated June 5, the IMD saidthe low pressure area has a“low”, or 1-25 per cent, chanceof turning into a ‘depression’ bymid next week. A depression isthe second stage on the IMD’seight-level cyclone classifica-tion system.

If this predicted weatherdisturbance reaches the fourthstage — ‘cyclonic storm’ — onthe IMD’s scale, it will be givena name — Cyclone Gati.

Monsoon had hit Kerala onJune 1 on its normal onset date.The IMD had earlier predict-

ed that the monsoon would bedelayed by four days, butCyclone Nisarga helped pushthe monsoon to reach Keralaon its normal onset date.

“Conditions are becomingfavourable for further advance-ment of Southwest Monsooninto some more parts of centralArabian Sea, Karnataka, TamilNadu, Puducherry andKaraikal, southwest and eastcentral Bay of Bengal, entiresoutheast Bay of Bengal andsome parts of west central Bayof Bengal during next 2 days,”the IMD said.

According to the IMD, thecountry as a whole has received9 per cent more rainfall thanthe normal since June 1.

The north Indian plainswill also witness rainfall due toa western disturbance, the IMD said.

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Amid Covid-19 pandemic,International Yoga Day

this year would be celebratedon digital media platforms andthere would be no mass gath-erings, the Government said onFriday. This year’s theme will be“Yoga at Home and Yoga withFamily”.

People will be able to joinYoga Day celebrations virtual-ly at 7 am on June 21. IndianMissions abroad are trying toreach out to the people throughdigital media as well through thenetwork of institutions whichsupport yoga, officials said.

The AYUSH Ministry hadearlier planned to hold a grandevent at Leh which, however,had to be cancelled because ofthe pandemic.

Besides, through the “MyLife My Yoga” video bloggingcompetition which waslaunched by the prime ministeron May 31, the Ministry ofAYUSH and ICCR seeks to raiseawareness about yoga and toinspire people to prepare for andbecome active participants inthe observation of IDY 2020.

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The Congress on Fridaydubbed Prime Minister

Narendra Modi’s “vocal forlocal” call and the economicstimulus package to make thecountry self-reliant as yetanother jumla to divert theattention of the people from“real issues”.

Addressing a video Pressconference, senior Congressleader Kapil Sibal asked how canIndia become self-reliant till itcreates innovation and intellec-tual property in its universities.

“This is an act of selfdeception. This is another‘jumla’ (rhetoric) that you sellto the people of the country.We are only manufacturing‘jumlas’, statements and slogans.That is the only thing we makein India and we are masters atthat under this government,” hesaid, taking a swipe at the BJP-led government.

Sibal said while the PrimeMinister calls for “AtmanirbharAbhiyaan”, his Government

has failed to help make thepoor, the farmers, the migrantworkers, the industry or theStates to become self-reliant.

Similarly, his exhortation toindustry to push ‘Made inIndia, Made for the World’, toexpand globally, not be depen-dent on another country in thestrategic sector, did not have aclear roadmap as to how thisgoal should be achieved, theformer union minister said.

The Rs 20 lakh crore‘Atmanirbhar’ package doesnot lead to expansion ofGovernment expenditure, as itincludes measures alreadyannounced by RBI and thebudget and amounts to lessthan 1 per cent of GDP, asagainst 10 per cent claimed bythe Government, he noted.

“The reality is that Modi’s‘Atmanirbhar’ idea is merely aslogan like innumerable others,”Sibal said. He also called for pri-vate investment in the univer-sities to create innovation andideas, which he said did notamount to privatisation.

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The civil services prelimi-nary examination 2020,

postponed due to the coron-avirus pandemic, will be heldon October 4, the Union PublicService Commission (UPSC)announced on Friday.

It said the personality testof the candidates selectedthrough the last year’s civil ser-vices preliminary and mainexaminations will resume fromJuly 20. This year’s preliminarytest was originally scheduled tobe held on May 31, but wasdeferred due to the nationwidelockdown to contain the spreadof coronavirus.

Minister of State forPersonnel Jitendra Singh saidthe announcement of freshdate for the civil services pre-liminary exam would allayapprehensions in some quartersof it being cancelled. “It wouldalso allay apprehension fromthe minds of some quarterswho thought that they wouldbecome overage by the nextyear in case the exam waspostponed. Candidates neednot worry. The examinationwill be held as per the UPSC’s

schedule,” he said.The civil services exami-

nation is conducted annually inthree stages — prelims, mainand interview — by the UPSCto select officers for the IndianAdministrative Service (IAS),the Indian Foreign Service(IFS) and the Indian PoliceService (IPS), among others.Lakhs of aspirants take theexamination every year to bepart of the country’s covetedcivil services.

The decision on announce-ment of fresh date was taken ina meeting held by theCommission to review the pre-vailing situation due to Covid-19 lockdown. “Taking note ofthe opening of lockdown andprogressive relaxations beingannounced by the Central gov-ernment and various states, theCommission decided to issue arevised schedule of examina-tion/recruitment tests,” theUPSC said in a statement.

According to the revisedcalendar, the civil services pre-liminary examination 2020 willbe held on October 4 (Sunday).The main examination 2020 willbegin from January 8, 2021(Friday) for five days, it said.

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Awidely available and inex-pensive drug, Famotidine

(Pepcid AC) that is used to easethe symptoms of indigestionmay prove a worthy contenderfor treating coronavirus inthose whose disease doesn’trequire admission to hospital,as per a finding, publishedonline in the journal Gut.

The effects were felt with-in 24 to 48 hours of takingfamotidine, and a rigorousclinical trial is now warrantedto see if the drug could be aneffective treatment for Covid-19, the researchers said.

It belongs to a class ofdrugs known as histamine-2receptor antagonists, whichreduce the amount of stomachacid produced. Famotidine canbe taken in doses of 20-160 mg,up to four times a day, for thetreatment of acid reflux andheartburn.

The researchers report onten people (six men; fourwomen) who developed Covid-19 infection, all of whom hap-pened to have been takingfamotidine during their illness.

The severity of five cardi-nal symptoms — cough; short-ness of breath; fatigue;headache and loss of taste/smell

as well as general unwellness —was measured using a versionof a 4-point scale normallyapplied to assess the severity ofcancer symptoms (ECOG PS).

Seven of the patients test-ed positive for Covid-19, usinga swab test; two had antibod-ies to the infection; and onepatient wasn’t tested but wasdiagnosed with the infection bya doctor.

Their ages ranged from 23 to71 and known risk factors forCovid-19 severity, including highblood pressure and obesity.

All started taking famoti-dine when they were feelingvery poorly with Covid-19,the symptoms of which hadbeen going on from 2 up to 26days at that point.

Improvement was evidentacross all symptom categoriesassessed, but respiratory symp-toms, such as cough and short-ness of breath, improved morerapidly than systemic symp-toms, such as fatigue.

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Situation along the line ofcontrol in frontier dis-

tricts of Rajouri and Poonchin Jammu divisionremained tense with con-tinuous exchange of intenseshelling in the area for thelast couple of days.

Since June 1, thePakistan Army has beenresorting to heavy exchangeof fire along the line of con-trol with a clear objective topush small groups of heav-ily armed infiltrators insidethe Indian territory.

A havaldar of theIndian Army sacrificed hislife in the line of duty inSunderbani sector ofNowshera in Rajouri lateThursday night. DefenceSpokesman, Lt- ColDevender Anand said,“Havaldar Mathiazhagan P,hailing from SreerangaiKadu, Idappadi Tehsil,Salemdistrict of Tamil Nadu hadreceived critical injuriesduring unprovoked cease-fire violation by the PakistanArmy in Sunderbani sector

of Rajouri late Thursdayevening”. Lt Col Anand said,“the injured soldier wasevacuated to the Army hos-pital where he succumbedto his injuries”.

In the same district, aterrorist was neutralised bythe joint teams of securityforces in Panjah Mehariarea of Kalakote tehsil. Thesecurity forces had launchedsearch operations in thearea after receiving inputsabout the presence of agroup of heavily armed ter-rorists in the area.

Massive searches werelaunched at day break onFriday to track down thefootprints of other terrorists

holed up in the area.However, security forcescould not establish fresh con-tact with the hiding terroristsin the area till late evening.

According to police,“the entire area has beenkept under tight cordonwhile efforts were on toascertain the identity of theterrorist””. The securityforces had also recovered 1AK 47 rifle, three maga-zines, hand grenades (chi-nese make), four Anti per-sonnel mine, detonators,mobile handset with SIMcard and other items.

Earlier On June 1, threeheavily armed terroristswere neutralised by the alertIndian troops in Kalal areaof Nowshera while contin-uous cordon and searchoperations were launchedby the security forces inPoonch to track down thefootprints of infiltrators.

On Friday, fresh search-es were launched in Mendhartehsil of Poonch after receiv-ing inputs about the presenceof suspected terrorists hid-ing in the area.

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Tamil Nadu saw 1,438 personstesting positive for coronavirus

on Friday, the highest ever numberto be tested positive on a single day.With the addition of 1,438 patientsinto the pool, Tamil Nadu has 12,697 active Covid-19 cases as onFriday. Till date 28, 694 personshave tested positive for the pan-demic in the State, according tomedical bulletin issued by TamilNadu Government.

The death tally on Friday was12 and this took the total numberof fatalities til date to 232. Out ofthe 12 who breathed their last onFriday, four were in the 80-82 agegroup, three were in 70-72 group,one was 68, two were 56 and 50years of age and a 44 year old per-son. While eight persons werehaving diabetes mellitus and hypertension as co-morbid conditions,there were two cases of allergicbronchitis and acute respiratorydistress syndrome. Two of thedeceased were suffering fromchronic kidney ailments.

The bulletin said that till date15, 762 persons have been dis-charged from the hospitals fullycured. The State has tested a totalof 5,60,673 samples till date out of

which 5, 31, 295 samples werefound negative.

Chennai continued to be thedistrict which tested the highestnumber of positive cases- 1,116.Thiruvallur, Chengaplattu,Kancheepuram and Cuddalorecontinued to the districts closelyfollowing Chennai in the numberof positive cases detected in theState.

The possibilities of anydecrease in the number of patientstesting positive in Chennai lookbleak according to doctors inGovernment service. “The chiefminister himself has said that thereare 6ix to seven persons staying insmall rooms in the narrow lanes ofChennai. How is it possible tomaintain norms like social dis-tancing in these areas?” asked adoctor in one of the Governmenthospitals on Friday.

Unperturbed by the growingnumber of coronavirus cases in theState, the Government is goingahead with preparations for theClass X public examinations whichbegin on June 15. Meanwhile,Chief Minister EdappadiPalaniswamy has written to theheads of 11 global automobilegiants asking them to exploreinvestment opportunities and setup shops here.

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The unabated increase in the pop-ulation of slums and failure in

the programmes launched to erad-icate slum areas are the reasonsbehind Chennai being the epicenterof coronavirus pandemic in TamilNadu, according to EdappadiPalaniswamy, Chief Minister.“Chennai has about 87 lakh peopleliving in narrow streets and there areseveral houses with 6 to 7 peoplestaying in them,” Palaniswamy toldreporters last Tuesday after presid-ing over a meeting of senior IAS offi-cers and medical professionals.

The metropolis has one of thehighest densities of populationamong south Indian cities, accord-ing to Prof C Murukadas, TamilNadu’ lead economist who headedthe Department of Economics,University of Madras for more thantwo decades. He said massive urban-ization and the resultant unabatedincrease in the number of slums have

made Chennai a volcano whichcould explode at anytime. “We haveopened a Pandora’s Box and I doubtwhether we would be able to restoreChennai to its lost purity,” he toldThe Pioneer.

He had alerted the Governmentsat the Centre as well as in Statesabout the disastrous consequences ofrapid urbanization, increasing pop-ulation and free-for-all entry into thecountry’s major metropolises in hisresearch and the resultant book“Slum-Free Cities- A SisyphusChallenge for India” published in2014.

While the book won him acco-lades from abroad, the people whomatter chose to ignore his findings.Dr Murukadas says the figure quot-ed by Chief Minister that 87 lakhpeople live in slums and over-crowded narrow lanes/streets ofChennai is way of the mark. “TheUrban Agglomeration (UA) ofChennai has resulted in the city’spopulation crossing the 89 lakhmark in 2013 itself. UA stands for

continuous urban spread constitut-ing a town and its adjoining urbanOut Growths or two or more phys-ically contiguous towns togetherand any adjoining urban outgrowthsof such towns,” he explained.

He said he had visited manyslum dwellings in the metropolis inIndia and abroad. The living condi-tions in the units in India are shock-ing. “All these single room or dou-ble room units house 10 to 12 per-sons. Most of the men are unem-ployed and it is the women who arethe breadwinners. Men while awaytheir time playing cards and drink-ing alcohol from the earnings madeby the woman of the house,” said theprofessor.

Quoting the estimates made bythe Committee on SlumStatistics/Census, Prof Murukadaspoints out that the slum populationconstituted 75.26 million (26.31 percent) out of the 286 million urbanpopulation of the country in 2001.“As per the estimates the slum pop-ulation o India is estimated to have

reached 93.06 million in 201. Theslum population of Chennai could besomewhere near the 25 lakh mark.Another 25 lakh stay in narrow lanesin unhygienic conditions withoutbasic facilities like toilet ,” he said.Toilet facilities are available at thecommunity level only. “The extreme-ly limited latrines and their overuseby too many persons have made theslum areas unhygienic and filthy,” hesaid.

He says unless the Governmentintroduces massive population con-trol measures India is in for majordisaster. “There should be a mech-anism whereby the entry of peopleto major metros are regulated by law.Those who are not employed and donot have even rented places to stayshould not be allowed into thecities. The Slum ClearanceProgrammes launched by the gov-ernments were all piecemeal mea-sures and have gone awry,” said ProfMurukadas who is working on a pro-ject to come out with a sequel toSlum Free Cities.

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Wilson, a farmer fromEdavanna in

Malappuram district wasarrested on Friday by KeralaPolice in connection with thegruesome death of a pregnantelephant which was fedcoconut stuffed with explosives.

According to sources in thepolice team probing the inci-dent, Wilson said that thecoconut stuffed with explosiveswas placed in the farm to getrid of pigs which frequentlyraided the crops. Though ini-tially it was reported that theelephant had bitten explosive-laden pineapple, it turned outto be a coconut filled withdeadly explosives.

The police is in search ofAbdul Kareem and his sonRiyazuddeen, owners of thefarm where Wilson is employedas a labour. Kareem andRiazuddeen are abscondingand it is believed that theywould surrender before the

police late this evening or onSaturday. Sources in the inves-tigation team said that bothKareem and Riazuddeen wereinto poaching of wild animalsin a big way. Wilson was anexpert in assembling explosivesand stuffing it in fruits to trapthe animals.

The police has filed casesagainst the three under varioussections of the Kerala ForestAct and Wildlife ProtectionAct. If proved correct, theaccused could be sentenced upto seven years imprisonment.

Forest officials with whomThe Pioneer spoke were of theview that the elephant wasfrom the Silent Valley ReserveForest and had trespassed intothe farm lands in the peripheryof the forest. “It is difficult topinpoint the exact spot wherethe incident happened. It couldbe either in Malappuram orPalakkadu districts. The vastfarm land stretches across thetwo districts,” said MohanKrishna, the Forest official

who broke the news to the out-side world through his socialmedia posting.

He said it was not with anyulterior intention that theForest Department said theincident might have taken placein either Malappuram orPalakkadu distrocts. “Whenwe understood that the inci-dent happened atMannarakkadu, we correctedthe same immediately,” he said.

Kerala based CyberWarriors hacked the website ofPeople For Animal, a portalbelonging to the NGO led byManeka Gandhi, former unionminister for environment forher reported outburst againstMalappuram district while con-demning the incident.

Muslim League leader P KKunhalikutty MP and K CVenugopal of nthe Congressalong with the CPI(M), CPIleaders condemned the BJPand Sangh Parivar organisa-tions for their efforts to com-munalize the issue.

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Panaji: Goa's active coron-avirus cases have increased to130 in the wake of detection of96 positive cases in South Goa'sMangor hill area, alreadydeclared a containment zone,Chief Minister Pramod Sawantsaid on Friday.

Continuing to rule outcommunity transmission inthe state, Sawant said that fourpersons who landed in Goafrom Dubai on Tuesday on aVande Bharat Mission flighthad tested positive.

Sawant said that the keyreason for the spike in coronainfections in Goa was the quickspread of the virus in Mangorhill cluster, located in the juris-diction of Vasco urban healthcentre.

As many as 72 persons test-ed positive there on Wednesdayand Thursday. IANS

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Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee on Friday

attacked the BJP for playingdirty politics at a time when theState is passing through badtimes.

“I do not want to name peo-ple who are vitiating the affairsof the State... But there are somepolitical parties who are takingadvantage of the current crisisafter corona pandemic and supercyclone Amphan hit Bengal.They are playing dirty game towin political mileage. At a timewhen our Government is tryingits best to fight out the crisisthese political parties are talkingabout toppling it,” Banerjee saidasking “Is it the time to play pol-itics taking advantage of a crisisthat has hit the large cross sec-

tion of people?”She said, “They (BJP) are

talking of throwing me out ofpower. But have I said the samething about Prime MinisterNarendra Modi? Have I calledfor throwing Modi out of power?I have never said that Modijishould be removed. So why arethey disturbing me here... Thisis not the time to play politics”

Attacking the BJP leadershipfor sitting back in the safety oftheir houses when her party menwere out fighting corona andreaching relief to the distressedpeople she said “these leaderswere in hiding in the cool com-forts of their houses and nowthey have suddenly come out totake political advantage of thesituation.”

Hitting back the BJP said itwas the Chief Minister who

was politicizing the issue and notthe BJP. Senior BJP leader RahulSinha said, “the Chief Minister’sGovernment is stopping the BJPmen from traveling to thecyclone-hit areas whereas theyare allowing the CPI(M) andCongress to reach relief becauseshe is afraid of our growing pop-ularity.

To fight corona she did notbring in doctors or nurses fromoutside but she brought in elec-tion strategist Prashant Kishoreto tour the affected region... Ifthis is not politics then what is?”

Meanwhile, a seven-mem-ber central team is visitingBengal to evaluate the postAmphan situation. The team ledby senior IAS officer AnujSharma on Friday visitedAmphan affected areas of Northand South 24 Parganas.

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The Union Territory of Jammu &Kashmir on Friday recorded 182

fresh cases of coronavirus, taking thetotal tally of cases to 3,324 and activecases to 2,202.

In Kashmir, a 5-day-old babyfrom Kulgam tested positive alongwith five doctors, and seven pregnantwomen.

However, senior governmentfunctionaries heaved a sigh of reliefafter test reports of senior bureaucratsand other government officials of thehealth department tested negative inJammu. These officers had come incontact with a senior IAS officer at ahigh level meeting in Jammu. The IASofficer had later tested positive afterhis return from Srinagar.

Meanwhile, with one more deathreported from Kashmir the death tolltoo has gone up to 36 while the totalrecoveries touched 1,086 on Friday.

According to the media bulletin,

74 cases were reported from Jammudivision while 108 cases were report-ed from Kashmir division. Moreover,38 more Covid-19 patients wererecovered and discharged from vari-ous hospitals, 16 from Jammu divisionand 22 from Kashmir division.

According to the media bulletin,out of 3324 positive cases, 2202 areActive Positive, 1086 have recoveredand 36 have died; 04 in Jammu divi-sion and 32 in Kashmir division.

In Kashmir valley, out of 108 pos-itive cases, Shopian district reporteda maximum number of 42 cases fol-lowed by Srinagar with 22 freshcases. Meanwhile, three districts ofAnantnag, Kulgam and Srinagar haveso far recorded over 350 plus cases.Kupwara and Baramulla in Kashmirvalley have reported 308 and 331 casesso far respectively.

Jammu district has so far report-ed 190 positive cases followed byRamban with 164 cases andUdhampur with 123 cases.

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The Covid infection rate inthe city is a miniscule 0.003

per cent compared to a population of 1.2 crore people,said a minister on Friday.

“The population ofBengaluru is estimated at 1.2crore. The total number ofinfected persons in the cityfrom the last two months toThursday evening was 424,”tweeted state Primary andSecondary Education MinisterS. Suresh Kumar.

He said Bengaluru'sinfection rate is 0.003 per

cent.Out of the 424 cases, 148

are currently active, 262 dis-charged, 13 dead and one non-Covid death.

A Covid patient committedsuicide by jumping from abuilding and was categorized asa non-Covid death.

Though the rate of infec-tion in the city is not as high asother places in the state, it haswitnessed the highest numberof Covid deaths in Karnataka.

These statistics are forBengaluru Urban, as catego-rized by the state Health andFamily Welfare department.

Though the city bore theburden of the highest numberof cases for a long time, infec-tion spikes have resulted inother towns and districts over-taking the city.

Currently, Udupi is grap-pling with the highest numberof active cases in the state at481, followed by Kalaburagi(375), Raichur (318), Yadgir(271).

The initial Covid cases inKarnataka were recorded in thecity in people who returnedfrom international travel.

Incidentally, the outskirtsof the city categorized asBengaluru Rural, has one of thelowest infection rates.

Bengaluru Rural has seenonly 19 infections until now,out of which only seven areactive with 11 discharges andonly one Covid death.

Till Thursday, Karnatakahad seen 4,320 Covid cases, outof which 2,651 are active.

Amaravati: Yet another fluc-tuation was witnessed inAndhra Pradesh when thestate's single-day count ofCovid-19 cases dipped to 50 onFriday.

On Thursday, the state hadreported an all-time high of 98cases for the second time infour days. With the latestupdate, the state's tally rose fur-ther to 3,427.

According to the medicalbulletin issued by the statenodal officer, 9,831 sampleswere tested in the 24 hoursending 9 a.m., Friday. In com-parison, 9,986 tests were con-ducted in the preceding testingcycle.

On Friday, 21 persons weredischarged from hospitals, tak-ing the cumulative tally ofcured persons to 2,294. AndhraPradesh currently has 1,060active cases that are beingtreated at various hospitals.

Meanwhile, with twodeaths reported from Krishnadistrict, the death toll in thestate climbed to 73 on Fridaymorning. Andhra Pradesh'smortality rate of 1.69 per cent

ranked 10th among the statesof India, according to figuresissued by the Andhra Pradeshgovernment on Wednesday.

Friday also saw the cumu-lative tally of Covid-19 casesamong the returnees fromother states rise to 700 from theThursday figure of 616 cases.The tally of active casesclimbed to 442 from the 372cases reported on Thursday.

On a positive note, 14 per-sons from this category weredischarged during the day.

With four new casesdetected among foreignreturnees, their cumulativetally climbed to 123 on Friday.

However, the tally of activecases in this category droppedto 119 following the dischargeof three persons in the last 24hours. IANS

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The Centre on Friday toldthe Supreme Court that

probe into assembly of peopleat Anand Vihar Bus Terminalin east Delhi and at TablighiJamaat event in NizamuddinMarkaz is being conducted onday-to-day basis by the Delhipolice and there was no needfor CBI investigation.

The Ministry of HomeAffairs gave in detail the stepstaken by the Delhi Police whichis making all efforts to com-plete the investigation withinthe time frame to submit thecharge sheet in the trial court.

A bench of Chief JusticeSA Bobde and Justices ASBopanna and Hrishikesh Royallowed the petitioner SupriyaPandita to file rejoinder affi-davit to the reply of Ministry ofHome Affairs (MHA) and list-ed the matter for further hear-ing after two weeks.

Pandita in her plea hadsought various reliefs includingCBI probe into the matterrelated to the assembly of peo-

ple at Anand Vihar BusTerminal and Markz inNizamuddin after nationwidelockdown was announcedalleging that Delhi police hasfailed to control the people andthe Nizamuddin Markaz chiefMaulana Saad was still evadingarrest.

Detailing the steps taken byDelhi police, the Ministry ofHome Affairs in its affidavitsaid that investigation inMarkaz matter is being con-ducted on a day-to- day basis,in accordance with the man-date of law and all efforts arebeing made to finalize investi-gation and submit a reportunder section 173 CrPC(charge sheet) before the trialcourt in a time bound manner.

“In view of the facts andcircumstances it is respectful-ly submitted that prayer D(direction for CBI probe) of thewrit petition does not meritsany consideration by thiscourt,” the reply affidavit said,adding that plea needs to bedisposed of.

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The Supreme Court onFriday asked private hos-

pitals whether they are ready toprovide treatment to Covid-19infected patients at the chargesprescribed under theGovernment's AyushmanBharat Scheme. The'Ayushman Bharat - PradhanMantri Jan Arogya Yojana' isaimed at providing health coverto poor and vulnerable personsin the country.

A bench headed by ChiefJustice S A Bobde observed thatthe apex court is not asking allthe private hospitals to treatcertain number of Covid-19patients for free.

The bench, also compris-ing Justices A S Bopanna andHrishikesh Roy, said it is ask-ing only those private hospitals,which have been given land atconcessional rates by the gov-ernment, to treat certain num-ber of coronavirus infectedpatients for free.

“I just want to know if hos-pitals are ready to charge at

Ayushman rates,” the CJIobserved during the hearingwhich was conducted throughvideo-conferencing.

Solicitor General TusharMehta, appearing for theCentre, told the bench that gov-ernment is doing its best for thelowest strata of society, andpeople who cannot afford treat-ment are covered under theAyushman Bharat scheme.

The top court, which post-ed the matter for two weeksfrom now, was hearing a pleawhich has sought a directionfor regulating the cost of treat-ment of Covid-19 at privatehospitals across the country.

During the arguments,the bench observed that thereis an earlier judgment whichsaid that hospitals, which havebeen given land on conces-sional rates, should treat certainnumber of patients for free.

“Why cannot these hospi-tals treat a certain number ofpatients for free”, the benchobserved, adding, “Pleaseensure they do someservice”.

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Maharashtra sank intodeep despair on Friday,

as the state recorded highest-ever day’s tally of 139 deathsand as many as 2,436 newinfected cases.

With the fresh deaths andinfections, the total number ofdeaths rose to 2,849, while thetotal infected cases jumped to80,229.

Taking into the total num-ber of deaths so far and the factthat 35156 patients have beendischarged from various hos-pitals so far, the state healthauthorities pegged the numberof “active cases” at42,215.

Of the deaths reported onFriday, Mumbai accounted for54 deaths, while there were 30deaths in Thane 14 deathseach in Pune and Jalgaon,eight deaths in Malegaon,

seven deaths in Kalyan-Dombivli, five deaths inRatnagiri, two deaths each inSolapur and Nashik, one deatheach in Vasai-Virar –1,Bhiwandi and Aurangabad-1.

Of the 139 deaths today,75 were men while 64 werewomen. Seventy eight wereaged over 60 years, 53 werefrom the age group 40 to 59years and 8 were aged below40 years. “One hundred tenout of 139 patients (79%) had

high-risk co-morbidities suchas diabetes, hypertension,heart disease,” a state healthbulletin said.

Out of the total deathsreported today, 27 deathsoccurred in the last two daysand the rest are from the peri-od from April 21 to June 22020.

In Mumbai, with 54 newdeaths and 1459 fresh infec-tions, the total number deathsmounted to 1519, while thetotal infected cases rose to46080. The BrihanmumbaiMunicipal Corporation(BMC) said that there were25,768 cases in the metropo-lis. Some key observationsmade in Friday’s health bul-letin included: The recoveryrate in the state is 43.81 percent, while case fatality rate inthe state i8s 3.55 per cent.

Currently, 5,45,947 people

are in home quarantine. Thereare 72,375 beds available in·quarantine institutions. Asmany as 30,291 people are ininstitutional quarantine now.

There are total 83 labora-tories functional in the statefor COVID-19 diagnosis – 46government ones and 37 pri-vate ones. Out of 5,22,946samples sent to laboratories,80,229 have been tested posi-tive for COVID-19 untilFriday.

The number of tests per 10lakh population in the state is3827, as against 2832 per 10lakh population in the coun-try.

There are 3479 active con-tainment zones in the statecurrently. Total 18,026 sur-veillance squads worked todayacross the state and surveil-lance of 69.18 lakh peopledone so far.

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Nations across the world havetaken different yet significantmeasures to limit the spread ofCOVID-19. The most imme-diate one taken by almost all

countries was to cancel physical face-to-face teaching in schools and higher edu-cation institutions. All kinds of social andreligious gatherings and public events, too,were banned. With a sudden shift from theclassroom to e-learning, many wonderedwhether the adoption of online educationwould continue to persist post-pandemicand how such a shift would impact the edu-cation market.

Indeed, in India, too, physical classroomshave replaced online classes. The transitionhas mostly been smooth in private univer-sities though public institutions are yet toadapt to the changes. This has led to wide-spread debates on the future course of class-es — whether they should be conductedonline or not. Realising the long-termimpact of COVID-19, faculty members, too,are finding it hard to conduct online class-es with ease. On the other hand, studentshave been left clinging on to their mobilephones, laptops and computer screens.What, however, is certain is that a post-COVID world must gear itself to adapt tosome changes. Being physically present ina classroom may not be the only learningoption anymore — not with the rise of theinternet and new technologies, at least. Aslong as there is access to a computer with arobust internet connection, students canattend live sessions or watch pre-recordedclasses. Does this mean that online educa-tion will soon replace classroom education?It should be kept in mind that even thoughthere have been huge technological advance-ments, they aren’t flawless. E-learning comeswith its own set of challenges.

Challenges and possibilities: In the caseof traditional classrooms, lack of engagementis problematic for teachers and students alike.Unlike online education, here, they cannotpause or rewind the classes in case they missout certain chapters. On the other hand,online education is not as easy as speakinginto the microphone at the one end and con-necting a laptop or phone and listening onthe other. There are other challenges with thisform of education that have to be faced byboth — faculty as well as students. While theformer will have to put in extra labour to gen-erate lectures, it will be difficult for the lat-ter to make sense of it online. Then, how willthis form of education compensate for theacademic loss suffered by students?Practically speaking, there is no alternativeto classroom activities.

Most important of all, even after somuch digitisation, rural India will faceunprecedented challenges due to poor con-nectivity and frequent power cuts thatwould affect the productivity of the class-room. Talking about access to electricity,according to Mission Antyodaya, a nation-

wide survey of villages conduct-ed by the Ministry of RuralDevelopment in 2017-18, 16 percent of India’s householdsreceived one to eight hours ofelectricity daily, 33 per centreceived 9-12 hours and only 47per cent received more than 12hours a day. Further, accordingto data collected by the NationalSample Survey as part of theSurvey on Education (2014),only 27 per cent of householdsin India have some memberwith access to internet. Access tointernet does not necessarilymean that a household actuallyhas internet at home.

While increasing ethernetconnectivity should be the larg-er goal, in the short term, dataon mobile phones must be sub-sidised. Device ownership, too,is a problem and for this, theGovernment must provide forcheap smartphones for studentsto get on with the business ofteaching. Organisations such asthe National Institute of OpenSchooling (NIOS), NationalCouncil for Promotion of UrduLanguage (NCPUL), IGNOUand other such bodies offeringdistance education as well as theGovernment must assess currentand future infrastructurerequirements for digital age andbridge the gap.

But what if e-learningbecomes the way of life foreducation? What would be themajor issues and areas that

require introspection? And whatdoes this mean for the studentsgoing forward?

Most universities are nowoffering web-based file-sharingservices to their faculty membersand research communities.However, there are several otherways to make multimediaresources accessible over theinternet. Certainly, the mostfamiliar one is YouTube, whichthough ubiquitous and easy-to-use, does present challenges toclassroom use that must not beignored. The most glaring oneis the comments section. Theinstructor can take it for grant-ed that some comments will notbe suitable for projection on aclassroom screen.

Similarly, advertisementsfound lining the video could bea problem, too. Regardless of theproduct being promoted, theclassroom need not be turned toa search service in order toaccess multimedia resources.To avoid this, a number of webbrowser extensions are availablethat provide for an unsulliedviewing experience, hiding com-ments, menu side bus and adver-tisements from the view. Anumber of cloud-based tools,too, are available that allow filesto be stored and shared across aremote host, which at the veryleast offer the instructor the flex-ibility to adapt. Foremost amongthese are Dropbox, which is a filehosting service that offers free

data storage across several oper-ating platforms. Amazon clouddrive offers 5 GB of free storageand provides a straight forwardweb-based interface for upload-ing and retrieval of files.Similarly, GoogleDocs allowsfor the uploading of entire fold-ers to the cloud, making remotestorage of a set of organised filesquite easy.

Make the digital transition:Technological prospects forclassrooms have evolved inremarkable ways since theCOVID-19 pandemic. We havewitnessed the successful intro-duction of smartphones that arecapable of running audio-visu-al clips and interactive languagedrills; tablets are now replacingthe laptop as an essential class-room gear; and there has beena rich array of online dictionar-ies. Further, news media andunicode blogs are now search-able in original scripts; a sea ofwebsites are dedicated towardsthe study and dissemination ofliterature. The worldwide pop-ularity of Facebook, Twitter,Instagram, Google classroom,Zoom, Cisco Webex and theuser-centred design of web hasaddressed concerns of languageuse. Even mini tablets are nowequipped with built-in digitalcamera. In fact, they allow stu-dents to use audio and videoediting software immediatelyupon recording. All of theseadvancements offer promising

ways for the students to do theirhomework, going far beyondjust a paper and pen.

The time has come for us toadapt to new and innovativeteaching methods. So, whatnext? Most experts andresearchers across academicinstitutions agree that there is aneed to create standardisedonline education platforms.Besides students and teachersmust be trained to get accus-tomed to using digital technolo-gies. Others highlight the neces-sity to introspect on the natureof these platforms and how stu-dents must be taught using dif-ferent online tools and methodswhile keeping accessibility andthe challenges in mind.

To look for possibilities,there is lack of clarity amongteachers and researchers aboutthe plan of action, especially withrespect to teaching, examination,results, internships and place-ments. Challenges are manythat need to be overcome. Somestudents without reliable inter-net access and technology strug-gle to participate in digital learn-ing. This gap is seen acrosscountries. Education is going tobe digital in the foreseeablefuture. We will be better pre-pared to handle it only with theright kind of infrastructure andpolicies in place. TheGovernment must pay heed.

(The writer is a linguist,author and columnist)

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Elephantine problem” (June4). It was heart-wrenching toknow about the horrific death ofa pregnant elephant in Kerala’sPalakkad district after she ate apineapple filled with firecrackersthat was allegedly left by somelocals. Amid the Corona crisis,one had expected that this wouldbe the time for nature to reclaimits lost space. The death of a wildelephant in Kerala serves as areminder that we humans havelong forgotten what humanity is.

In Kerala, which boasts a lit-eracy rate of 93.91 per cent, it isa practice for locals to use explo-sive-laced traps to get rid of wildanimals, especially boars. Andthis wasn’t the first time that suchtraps have claimed the life of anelephant here.

Though one arrest has beenmade in the present case, it is atravesty of justice that the maxi-mum punishment for the mur-derers would be just seven yearsin jail. There’s an urgent need tostrengthen animal and wildlifeprotection laws, too.

Tushar AnandPatna

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Sir — Coronavirus has elicitedvarying degrees of response fromnation-states. Weeks after the

spread of the virus, it was morethan evident that even countrieswith the best medical and publichealth infrastructure could findno match to this biological invad-

er. Containment through isola-tion was seen to be the loneweapon.

By virtue of the progressmade in science, we may find a

cure for COVID-19 but like everyother microbial onslaught tilldate, we have to pay a heavy price.When will mankind learn theuniversal tenet of simple livingand high thinking as advocatedby our rishis of yore?

R NarayananNavi Mumbai

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Trump’s expansionism” (June4). US President Donald Trump’scall to transform G-7 into G-11lacks clarity. He has failed to con-vince nations on the need toupgrade the grouping. He hasonly said that it has become out-dated. Besides, an analysis needsto be done on the failures of G-7. Given that the US would begoing to polls in November, itremains unclear how this wouldshape up. India has taken theright step by showing willingnessto attend the G-7 summit but itmust be impartial as it has till nowon international affairs.

ManishaVia email

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Symmetric to global trends, COVID-19 hashad multi-dimensional impacts on theIndian economy and society. Amid rising

concerns over the lives and livelihoods of thepoorer sections of the population due to thenationwide lockdown, the Governmentannounced seemingly bold economic packages.However, with a few exceptions, lack of coordi-nation in the official sphere at the ground levelhas had appalling consequences, especially on themillions of “city makers”, the urban informalworkers, who represent a significant share of theworkforce and contribute in multiple ways to theeconomy.

Employed mostly in the unorganised sectorand living in informal settlements in cities, theyhave borne the major brunt of the lockdown.They have no job contracts, no regular work, areoften employed casually and are without anysocial safety nets to support them and their fam-ilies during exigencies. Moreover, their livelihoodopportunities are constrained by multiple bar-riers that include deplorable housing conditions,inadequacies of urban services, in-built socio-economic disparities relating to caste and gen-der and also the policies and practices of govern-ments.

The challenges during the lockdown: AnIMPRI survey to understand the impact of thelockdown on the lives of migrant workersrevealed that almost three-fourth of the 3,121respondents from over 50 cities of India wereengaged in informal employment, i.e. dailywage work, petty trades/business and as tempo-rary workers without any social security bene-fits. It was found that six out of 10 workers hadlost their jobs during the lockdown, with unem-ployment being highest among the casuallabourers and self-employed respondents. Awhopping 74 per cent of the casual labourers losttheir jobs while 67 per cent of the self-employedworkers could not pursue their economic activ-ities due to the lockdown.

The workers, who had no other option butto remain confined within their houses withoutany work, could neither realistically practise socialdistancing, nor could they afford it. The inabil-ity to earn during the shutdown translated into54 per cent of the people being unable to pay rentfor their accommodation.

The loss of jobs had a spillover impact on theeducation of children, too, as most city-makerssend their offspring to Government schools. Inthe prevailing new normal of online teachingmethods and reliance on digital modes of learn-ing, education has become a distant dream forthe children of migrant labourers because theyhave no smartphones for accessing such educa-tion, forget about computers.

With 88 per cent of the city makers depend-ing on household income, savings, financial helpfrom relatives and friends and so on, for meet-ing their health-related expenditure, this tempo-rary job loss has added to their anxieties that anykind of health emergency, including COVID-19,would exacerbate.

What they want: Quite understandably, mostpeople want to return to work and almost three-fourth of the respondents said that they wouldjoin the same job in which they were engagedprior to the lockdown, if possible. In other words,this loss of jobs or livelihood options was con-sidered as a temporary phenomenon.

However, the absorption of jobless migrantworkers in newer fiscal activities with dignitywould significantly depend on the nature andtype of Government policies put in place to jump-

start economies of cities. This canmostly be done by providing boosts tolocal businesses and small and micro-enterprises.

The challenges: A defining chal-lenge for devising appropriate mitigat-ing policies for the city makers is thelack of data about them both prior toand during any kind of emergency. So,preparedness and early action by thecommunities are essential. To benefitfrom any Central and State Governmentrelief measures — both cash and non-cash — people must possessGovernment documents (ration card,Aadhaar card), bank account and beenrolled in different Government wel-fare schemes and so on.

The survey revealed that coverageof and eligibility for Government sup-port programmes was a major concern,as evident from the possession status ofvarious important documents by therespondents.

About 23 per cent of the respon-dents did not have ration cards, 32 percent did not have zero-balance Jan Dhanbank accounts and on an average onlyone out of 10 respondents were coveredunder the Government of India’s flag-ship public health as well as life insur-ance schemes — Ayushman Bharat, PMJeevan Jyoti Bima and PM SurakshaBima Yojna.

About 65 per cent of the surveyedrespondents were aware of theAarogyaSetu App and among them 62per cent reported use of the app. Only38 per cent respondents were aware ofState WhatsApp helplines. For otherapps and e-initiatives, the awareness lev-els of the respondents were very poor.Roughly about 20-30 per cent of therespondents were aware of State e-coupons for rations, State e-pass orother different State apps and use ofthese apps among them turned out tobe even more pathetic.

Lack of access to smartphones andunstable internet connectivity were themajor impediments in using the appsand portals.

Regarding their awareness on eligi-bility for Government support pro-grammes, only 37 per cent of therespondents thought that they were eli-gible for benefits under the PradhanMantri Gareeb Kalyan Yojana (havingan outlay of �20 lakh crore for theCOVID-19 response). However, only 34per cent of the respondents could availbenefits like cash transfers and freeration under this scheme.

The solutions: In the light of theabove evidence, it becomes extremelyimportant to think of precise policyimprovements to tide over the crisis. Tostart with, the stringent Aadhaar-requirements for accessing differentschemes must be relaxed for at least thenext six months. Another option couldbe a job assurance programme thatwould give needy households livelihoodsecurity during health crises.

Essentially, the COVID-19 crisisrequires extremely localised and coor-dinated responses. So, city govern-ments and their elected representativesshould decide on vigorous delivery ofbasic urban services that might be themost effective in their contexts.Financially-empowered city govern-ments with clear functional domain andadequate institutional capacity canrespond rapidly and contain the out-break of COVID-19.

It is equally important to improveand expand the coverage of the PublicDistribution System (PDS). Bridging theawareness gap regarding availableGovernment support programmes,especially the PDS, through timelyand reliable information and expand-ing the coverage of such programmesto the needy but non-registered seg-ments via certain temporary forms ofauthentication as alternatives, can bevery useful.

The last Economic Survey (2019-20) spoke of “Thalinomics”, which saysthat a good vegetarian and non-vege-tarian platter costs a minimum of �25minimum and �40, respectively.Therefore, in order to ensure that the

poorest sections of the population areable to fulfil their dietary require-ments, each identified needy personmust be provided with a dollar a day(around �2,000 per month).

Further, for everyone to be vigilantabout the spread of COVID-19, digitalliteracy for children belonging to poorfamilies, and smooth transfer of digitalpayment of welfare schemes, poorhouseholds should be provided anAndroid phone either for free or at asubsidised rate through PDS shops. Inaddition, the private sector (under theCSR component) should come forwardand provide free SIM and data couponsto Below Poverty Line households. It isthe most opportune time to ensure dig-ital literacy among the people.

In the US, $300-$400 are beinggiven weekly to the unemployed as anallowance. Therefore, to ensure a dig-nified assistance to the poor, theGovernment of India can afford to give$1 (about �75) a day to each poor per-son. If we give �2,000 per month assis-tance to 12 crore people (the bottomquartile population in the urban eco-nomic ladder), it will translate to�24,000 crore a month and �72,000crore for three months. This is certain-ly doable.

Moreover, if we can give an Androidphone in a graded manner to aroundfive crore people (prioritising the elder-ly, women and children going toGovernment schools) in the cities, itwould amount to around �30,000 crore(cost per handset around �6,000).Overall, this would amount to �100,000crore and would be crucial as Indiamoves into the “unlock” phase. Suchprovisioning is certainly doable andwould just need a reorientation of theBudget 2020-21. And to this, the �35lakh crore worth of forex reservescould be rightly utilised to pay for thewar against COVID-19, as it would helpdistribute the pain similar to theKeynesian tenets during World War-IIand create a better society.

(The writer is Director, IMPRI)

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Given the seriousness of theCOVID-19 pandemic, theGovernment imposed a nation-

wide lockdown by invoking provisionsof the National Disaster ManagementAct, 2005 (DM Act). The law wasenacted by invoking entry number 23,namely, “Social Security and SocialInsurance; Employment andUnemployment” in the ConcurrentList of the Constitution. Hence, itempowers Union and StateGovernments to frame rules and issue

executive orders. In fact, the subject“disaster management” is not specifi-cally mentioned in all the three lists ofthe Seventh Schedule of theConstitution. Therefore, theParliament exercised its power toenact a law on the subject.

Other entries like “Public Order”and “Public Health” were included inthe State List when the Constitutionwas framed. Further, consequent uponthe 73rd and 74th Amendments to theConstitution in 1993, “Public Health”found place in the 11th and 12thSchedules. As a result, panchayats andmunicipalities have been assignedcivic powers to render “public health”to citizens in their respective jurisdic-tions.

Rightly so, as democratic andcooperative organisations at the locallevel are arguably the best to renderpreventive and prophylactic measureslike inoculation and vaccination. The

main function of these local self-gov-ernments is to make the people under-stand what change or innovation ben-efits them, why it does so and how itcan be introduced. It is for the com-munity to participate in all the activ-ities which lead to such change orinnovation.

Panchayats and municipalitieswere brought into the statute book topromote better living for the commu-nity with the active participation of thecommunity. Here, the word “commu-nity” means a local society in a geo-graphical rural or urban area, cuttingacross caste, religious and economicdifferences.

Ironically, these key institutionshave not found their rightful place inthe DM Act. A passing reference ismade to “local authorities” underSection 41 of the DM Act. As per thesection, these panchayats, munici-palities and cantonment boards are

mandated to carry out “relief, rehabil-itation and reconstruction activities”only under the “directions of theDistrict Authority.” The DM Act stip-ulates, under Section 25, the setting upof a ‘District Disaster ManagementAuthority’ under the stewardship of aDistrict Collector/Magistrate, who isassisted by the chairperson of the dis-trict council in the capacity of co-chair-person of the district authority.

Further, Section 31 of the DM Actprovides for a “plan” by the districtauthority in consultation with localauthorities subject to approval by theState. The provision is akin to Article243 ZD, a mandatory constitutionalprovision, which envisages a districtplanning committee (DPC) for spatialplanning, infrastructure developmentand environmental conservation.

States have given the provision ofDPC in their respective Acts butseem to be reluctant to make them

operational. As a result, the process ofdecentralised planning is hamperedand associated capacity-developmentis completely denied.

On the other hand, the DM Actis unambiguous in assigning powersto Union and State Governments.Section 62 of the Act stipulates extra-ordinary powers to the Centre bywhich any authority in UnionMinistries, statutory bodies and StateGovernments is bound to take direc-tion from the nodal Central Ministry.In addition, a national plan is drawnup under Section 11.

At the State level, under Section14, a State Disaster ManagementAuthority is required under the chair-manship of the Chief Minister of theState. This authority is assisted by aState Executive Committee headed bythe Chief Secretary of the State. Thecommittee prepares the State DisasterManagement Plan after following the

guidelines of the National Authorityand a select consultation with the dis-trict and local authorities.

Penal provisions in Chapter 10 ofthe DM Act pave the way for securi-ty personnel to take coercive measuresagainst offenders. However, medicalprofessionals are not covered underthis provision. Recent incidents ofstone pelting and misbehaviour withdoctors and nurses compelled theGovernment to introduce penal pro-visions protecting healthcare person-nel and their property against violence.For the purpose, an Ordinance waspromulgated on April 22 to amend theEpidemic Diseases Act, 1897 in thelight of the current pandemic. Thiscould be a permanent provision tomaintain the morale of the healthcareprofessional and discipline miscreants.

It may be observed that the pan-demic till date is being controlledthrough centralised institutional

arrangements with remarkable coop-eration of all State Governments andpublic servants and security forces havebeen enforcing the lockdown effective-ly. The lockdown exit plan will grad-ually give way to decentralised respon-sibilities to panchayats and municipal-ities. The sooner this shift takes placethe better it will be.

The Government has prominent-ly pronounced the role of local self-governments to combat COVID-19,which can only be prevented bychanging human attitudes and behav-iours. Local governments and thecommunity are best placed to bringthis change and inculcate social dis-tancing on a sustainable basis. Hence,the role of local governments must beprominent, at least, in the DM Act.

(The writer is faculty, IndianInstitute of Public Administration,

New Delhi. The views expressed are personal)

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Another round of trade dis-cussions between the

European Union and the UKended Friday — and onceagain there were no signs ofreal progress ahead of a loom-ing deadline on whether atransition arrangement can beextended.

Following four days ofvideo discussions because ofthe coronavirus pandemic, thetwo sides remained at logger-heads on a number of issues,including on regulations forbusinesses. Their positions onfisheries also remain distant,with the UK adamantly

opposed to EU demands forlong-term access to Britishwaters.

“The truth is there was nosignificant progress this week,”the EU chief negotiator MichelBarnier said during a press con-ference.

The UK left the politicalinstitutions of the EU onJanuary 31 but remains insidethe EU’s tariff-free economiczone until the end of the year.That so-called transition peri-od can be extended by twoyears but a request to do so hasto be made by July 1. PrimeMinister Boris Johnson hasrepeatedly said he won’t ask foran extension.

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Authorities in Bangladeshhave been releasing hun-

dreds of children suspected ofcommitting mostly pettycrimes as they try to keep thecoronavirus from spreading inovercrowded detention cen-ters, officials said Friday.

The orders for their releaseon bail came from virtualcourts set up by the country’sSupreme Court with the helpof UNICEF, officials said.

About 400 children havebeen granted bail in recentweeks and more than 300 ofthem have already been reunit-ed with their families, saidNatalie McCauley, chief ofchild protection at UNICEF inBangladesh. She said the deci-sion came as public healthexperts said children living inthe country’s detention centers

face a higher risk of gettinginfected, mainly because ofovercrowding and poor con-ditions.

Bangladesh has a pro-tracted system of deliveringjustice, with some cases forpetty crimes taking years toconclude. According toUNICEF, some 23,000 casesinvolving children under 18are currently pending withcourts across the country.

Saifur Rahman, a specialofficer of the Supreme Courtand additional district judgewho is involved with therelease program, said the pro-gram was crucial as with inad-equate staff and utilities indetention centers, it wasextremely difficult to minimizethe risk of infection fromCOVID-19.

“In all fairness, maintain-ing social and physical dis-

tancing is next to impossible insuch a situation,” he said.Mohammed Rakib, 15, wasaccused of beating a man inDhaka nearly two months ago.A judge from a regular courtdenied him bail and he waseventually sent to an over-crowded detention center justoutside Dhaka that UNICEFsays houses nearly 700 chil-dren even though it has thecapacity for about 300.

Late last month he wasfinally granted bail through thenew virtual court.

“It feels great to be freedand get united with my par-ents,” Rakib told TheAssociated Press on Friday. “Iam very happy. I have sufferedin the jail a lot. That’s a badplace.” The reunion was specialfor Rakib and his family asthey were able to celebrate theend of Ramadan together.

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Europe could have its freetravel zone up and run-

ning again by the end of themonth, but travellers fromfurther afield will not beallowed in before July,European Union HomeAffairs Commissioner YlvaJohansson said Friday aftertalks among the bloc’s interi-or ministers.

Panicked by the coron-avirus outbreak in Italy inFebruary, countries in the 26-nation Schengen area —where people and goods movefreely without checks —imposed border restrictionswithout consulting theirneighbours to try to keep thedisease out. The moves causedtraffic jams and blocked med-ical equipment.

Free movement is a jewelin Europe’s crown which helps

business flourish, and manyEuropean officials feared thatthe very future of theSchengen area was at threatfrom the restrictions. Theseadded to pressures alreadycaused by the arrival inEurope of well over 1 millionmigrants in 2015.

“I personally believe thatwe will return to a full func-tioning of the Schengen areaand freedom of movement ofcitizens no later than the endof the month of June,”Johansson told reporters afterthe video-conference meeting.

She said Europe’s Centrefor Disease Prevention andControl believes that con-finement and other healthmeasures are working. Thecenter says that more than168,000 people have beenkilled by the coronavirus inEurope, mostly in Britain,Italy, France and Spain.

Washington: Thousands ofAmericans carrying placardsreading “black lives matter” andraising slogans such as “no jus-tice, no peace” took to thestreets in many US cities,demonstrating peacefullyagainst the killing of unarmedAfrican-American GeorgeFloyd by a white police officerin Minneapolis on May 25.

The 46-year-old victim, anative of Houston, was hand-cuffed and pinned to theground on May 25 by a whitepolice officer who kneeled onhis neck as he gasped forbreath.

Floyd’s death has triggerednationwide violent protestswith a section of the protestersresorting to looting and riotingacross the country, leavingbehind a trail of destruction.

Mourners gathered in hugenumbers across the country onThursday night to rememberFloyd after a private memori-al service in Minneapolis.

Seeking justice for Floyd,they are demanding urgentreforms in the police and crim-inal justice system.

Several cities includingNew York, Washington DC,

Chicago and Los Angeles havereported large-scale violenceand looting in the last few days.

More than 10,000Americans have been arrestedacross the country for violentprotests.

Protesters chant slogans asthey march, with music anddrum beats blaring in the back-

ground in Los Angeles. Carswere seen moving slowly alongwith the marchers, with manydrivers and passengers holdingprotest signs or raising fists outof their windows to show sup-port.

In New York, city MayorBill de Blasio was booed at anevent.

“It will not be about wordsin this city. It will be about achange,” he said.

Reverend Al Sharpton,who delivered the eulogy, saidthat the reason “why we’remarching all over the world isbecause we were like George,we couldn’t breathe. It’s time forus to stand up in George’s

name and say get your knee offour necks”.

He also asked mourners tostand in silence for eight min-utes and 46 seconds, the lengthof time Floyd lay pinned to thepavement by the police officer.

“At the end of the day, mybrother’s gone, but the Floydname lives on. I thank god foryou all,” his brother TerrenceFloyd told another massivegathering in Brooklyn.

House Speaker NancyPelosi described this as a day ofgreat sadness.

“They are having the firstservice for George Floyd. It isa national day of mourning, Isee, for George Floyd, and wepray for his family and pray forhealing for our country,” shetold reporters at the US Capitol.

With placards reading“black lives matter”, protesterschanted “no justice, no peace.”

Minnesota AttorneyGeneral Keith Ellison onThursday announced to elevatecharges against the formerMinneapolis police officer whokilled Floyd while adding thecharges of aiding and abettingmurder against the other threeofficers at the scene. PTI

Washington: The WhiteHouse has called on China toprovide a full accounting ofthose who were killed,detained or remain missing inconnection with events sur-rounding the 1989 TiananmenSquare massacre.

“The Chinese CommunistParty’s (CCP) slaughter ofunarmed Chinese civilians wasa tragedy that will not be for-gotten,” White House PressSecretary Kayleigh McEnanysaid in a statement onThursday, joining the globalcondemnation of the massacre.

The American peoplereflect on the courage andoptimism of the hundreds ofthousands of Chinese citizenswho gathered peacefully 31years ago in Beijing andthroughout China to protestwidespread official corruptionand demand a greater say in thegovernance of their country,she said. PTI

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Paris: Churning US protestsover the death of George Floydhave revived anger in Franceover police violence, systemicracism and the complicatedcase of Adama Traore, a blackFrenchman who died in policecustody in July 2016.

For Traore’s family, theFloyd protests have also revivedtheir hopes for change.

“During the coronavirus,people had a pause in their lives.They filmed scenes of policeviolence and they realized they

were living in a country wherethere is violence every dayagainst people of color,” his sis-ter, Assa Traore, said.

Over 20,000 people flouteda police ban and protestedvociferously Tuesday in Paris tocall for justice for both Traoreand Floyd, and similar protestsare planned around France thisweekend. “As long as policearen’t convicted, we will keepcoming out in the streets,”Traore’s sister told TheAssociated Press. AP

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Washington: Twitter hasblocked a Trump campaignvideo tribute to George Floydover a copyright claim, in a movethat adds to tensions betweenthe social media platform andthe US president, one of its mostwidely followed users.

The company put a labelon a video posted by the@TeamTrump account thatsaid, “This media has been dis-abled in response to a claim bythe copyright owner.”

The video was still up onPresident Donald Trump’sYouTube channel and includespictures of Floyd, whose death

sparked widespread protests, atthe start.

“Per our copyright policy,we respond to valid copyrightcomplaints sent to us by a copy-right owner or their authorizedrepresentatives,” Twitter said ina statement. It did not say whomade the complaint.

The three minute and 45second clip is a montage ofphotos and videos of peacefulmarches and police officershugging protesters interspersedwith some scenes of burningbuildings and vandalism, set togentle piano music and Trumpspeaking. AP

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Temecula (US): The mayorof a Southern California cityresigned following an emailin which he stated he didn’t“believe there’s ever been agood person of color killedby a police officer” locally.

Temecula Mayor JamesStewart had apologisedThursday for the email, say-ing he never meant to use theword “good.” He had said heis dyslexic and so used voicetext to send his late-nightTuesday message but failed tonotice the added word.

“Unfortunately I did nottake the time to proofreadwhat was recorded. Iabsolutely did not say that,”Stewart told the RiversidePress-Enterprise onThursday.

“What I said is and Idon’t believe there has everbeen a person of color mur-dered by police, on context toTemecula or RiversideCounty. I absolutely did notsay ‘good.’ I have no idea howthat popped up.”

Stewart said he wasreplying to someone “con-cerned about our police offi-cers and their sensitivitytraining.” AP

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Kabul: US forces carried outtwo sets of airstrikes against theTaliban, in western and south-ern Afghanistan, a US Militaryspokesman said on Friday.

Elsewhere in the south,the Taliban set off a roadsidebomb and ambushed a policeconvoy, killing 10 Afghanpolicemen.

The US strikes against theTaliban were the first followinga brief cease-fire declared bythe insurgents for a majorMuslim holiday last month.

A US military spokesman,Colonel Sonny Leggett, saidone set of airstrikes took placeon Friday afternoon in westernFarah province, targeting 25Taliban fighters who wereattacking Afghan forces.

Hours earlier, on Thursdaynight, the US air forces struckan unknown number ofTaliban in southern Kandaharprovince, he said. There was no

immediate comment from theTaliban.

Since the signing of theUS-Taliban peace agreement atthe end of February, US forceshave only once beforeannounced a strike against theTaliban, in defence of Afghanforces. Leggett did not elaborateon the latest airstrikes or theirtargets.

However, an Afghan gov-ernment official, speaking oncondition of anonymitybecause he was not authorisedto talk to the media, said threesenior Taliban commandersand at least 13 other fighterswere killed in the Farahairstrikes.

Meanwhile, Afghan offi-cials in southern Zabulprovince said the Taliban thereambushed an Afghan policeconvoy after setting off a road-side bomb on Friday, killing 10policemen. AP

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Frankfurt: German police andfirefighters are clearing a sec-tion of Frankfurt around theconvention center to defuse aWorld War II-era bomb thatwas discovered during recentconstruction work.

Authorities say some 2,700people are being asked to leavetheir homes as they cordon offthe area as a precaution todefuse the 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) bomb. Buses and trainsthrough the area were also shutdown and bomb experts wereexpected to get to work on thebomb about noon Friday.

They say they hope thework will be finished by arounddinnertime. Even 75 years afterthe end of the war, such findsare still relatively common inGermany. AP

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Armed gangs have killed21 people in the latest

bloody assaults on villages inrestive northwest Nigeria,police said.

Assailants trying to stealcattle shot dead 15 people inclashes with local residents insix remote communities ofZamfara state on Tuesday,regional police spokesmanMohammed Shehu.

The gunmen — dubbed“bandits” by the authorities —returned the next day and shotdead six mourners at funeralsfor the earlier victims, thestatement released Thursdaysaid.

Nigeria’s northeast hasbeen wracked by years of vio-lence, involving clashesbetween rival communitiesover land, attacks by heavilyarmed gangs and retaliationstrikes from vigilante groups.

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Islamabad: Pakistan on Fridayregistered a record spike of4,896 new coronavirus cases,taking the total tally to 89,249,even as Prime Minister ImranKhan asserted that over175,000 volunteers have helpedto enforce the official guide-lines to contain the spread ofthe deadly virus in the country.

The Ministry of NationalHealth Service said 68 coron-avirus patients died in the last24 hours, taking the death tollto 1,838. Friday was the thirdconsecutive day when a recordnumber of COVID-19 caseswere reported in Pakistan afterthe Eid holidays and easing oflockdown restrictions at theend of May.

With 4,896 new infections,the total coronavirus tally inPakistan now stands at 89,249,the health ministry said.

Sindh province reported33,536 infections, Punjab33,144, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa11,890, Balochistan 5,582,Islamabad 3,946, Gilgit-Baltistan 852 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir 299.

Addressing the CoronaRelief Tiger Force via a specialtelevision briefing, PrimeMinister Khan said over175,000 members of the forcehave helped to enforce theofficial guidelines to containthe spread of the coronavirus inthe country. A record one mil-lion volunteers have registeredfor the force. “They have playedan important role after thelockdown was eased. Morethan 1,75,000 were active inRamadan who went to differ-ent mosques to ensure com-pliance with the safety guide-lines,” he said. PTI

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Islamabad: Cash-strappedPakistan is expected to recordaround 3 million jobs losesdue to the coronavirus out-break, the finance ministrytold the country’s Senate onFriday.

In response to SenatorMushtaq Ahmed’s question onestimated damage to the econ-omy due to the pandemic, thefinance ministry said the indus-trial sector is likely to lose 1million jobs and the remaining2 million will be lost in the ser-vice sector. PTI

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Beijing/Wuhan: Beijing onFriday decided to lower itsCOVID-19 emergencyresponse, marking the return ofnormalcy in China’s capitalfollowing the coronavirus out-break, while the central city ofWuhan, the origin point of thepandemic, cleared all its con-firmed cases.

Wuhan recorded zero casesof the virus following testing of10 million people.

Beijing city will lower itsemergency response to thenovel coronavirus epidemicfrom the second level to thethird level starting Saturday, alocal official announced onFriday.

On May 17, the BeijingCentre for Disease Preventionand Control said it was not nec-essary to wear masks. PTI

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Switzerland says it plans to liftrestrictions on travel from

European Union countries andBritain on June 15.

The Swiss government pre-viously had announced that itwould completely reopen thecountry’s borders with three ofits neighbours — Austria,Germany and France — inmid-June.

On Friday, a governmentstatement said “in view of thecurrent epidemiological situa-tion” it can now expand that toall countries in the EU and theEuropean Free TradeAssociation, as well as Britain.

Switzerland is not a member of the EU but is part of Europe’s usually pass-port check-free Schengen travel area.

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Equity indices resumed theirupward march on Friday as

investors piled into bankingand infrastructure stocks amid robust foreign fundinflows and a firm trend inglobal markets.

Reversing the previous ses-sion’s decline, the BSE Sensexzoomed 306.54 points or 0.90per cent to end at a three-month high of 34,287.24.

The broader NSE Niftyrose 113.05 points or 1.13 percent to 10,142.15.

State Bank of India (SBI)was the top gainer in the Sensexpack, surging 7.90 per cent,after the country’s largestlender reported an over four-fold jump in standalone netprofit for the March quarter at�3,580.81 crore.

Tata Steel, Bajaj Finance,HDFC Bank, NTPC, Axis Bankand ICICI Bank also endedwith gains of up to 6 per cent.On the other hand, TCS, HUL,Bajaj Auto and Infosys wereamong the laggards, skiddingup to 2.19 per cent.

Reliance Industries (RIL)succumbed to profit-booking,ending flat after touching itsone-year high in intra-daytrade. Continuing its deal-

making streak, the companyannounced sale of 1.85 per centstake in its digital unit JioPlatforms to Abu Dhabi-basedsovereign investor Mubadalafor � 9,093.60 crore.

During the week, Sensexsurged 1,863.14 points or 5.74per cent, while Nifty advanced561.85 points or 5.86 per cent.

According to traders,besides stock-specific action,persistent foreign fund inflowsand positive cues from globalmarkets led to bullish senti-ment here.

On a net basis, foreignportfolio investors bought equi-ties worth �2,905.04 crore onThursday, provisional exchangedata showed. “The currentweek has been a good one for

the global markets as majorfrontline markets posted astrong rally,” said SanjeevZarbade, VP PCG Research,Kotak Securities.

The rally has been drivenby positive sentiment generat-ed from gradual lifting of lock-down across economies,despite weak economic read-ings and civil unrest in the US,he said. “Markets during theweek surprised everyone bymoving higher. The only justi-fiable reason to the currentmomentum is the liquidity.

The investable universe isgradually narrowing withshortage of top-graded stockswhereas the abundant moniesavailable for purchasing themare increasing.

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State Bank of India on Fridayregistered its highest ever

yearly profit in 2019-20 andlogged a four-fold rise in Marchquarter profit at �3,581 crore asone-time gains from stake salein subsidiaries and decline inbad loans bolstered the coun-try’s largest lender.

The bank reported a stand-alone profit after tax of �838crore in January-March, 2018-19, according to a regulatoryfiling. For 2019-20, the bankreported its highest ever year-ly profit of �14,488 crore asagainst �862 crore in the pre-vious year. SBI said exceptionalitems during 2019-20 includednet profit of �3,484.30 crore onsale of certain portion of invest-ment in subsidiary SBI LifeInsurance in the second quar-ter and net profit of � 2,731.34crore on sale of some stake inSBI Cards and PaymentServices in March quarter.

“Despite not so easy cir-cumstances even beforeCOVID-19, the bank hasdeclared a record profit of �14,488 crore in FY20, which isthe highest ever profit for SBIin its history. We have consis-tently been able to improve our

asset quality as well as the pro-vision coverage ratio quarterafter quarter,” bank’s chairmanRajnish Kumar told reporters.

Close to 21 per cent of thebank’s retail borrowers haveavailed the three-month mora-torium announced by the RBI.Kumar said in spite of thebank extending the moratori-um to all its customers, nearly82 per cent have paid two ormore instalments and about 92per cent have paid one ormore instalments duringMarch to May. The centralbank had initially allowedbanks to offer moratorium onrepayment of term loans tillMay 31 but later extended it foranother three months.”Thethree-month period has juststarted but my feeling is thatour numbers would not be sig-nificantly different than whatthey were in the first threemonths. It may even improve(in June-August period) as weexit the lockdown,” Kumarsaid. He said the bank hasextended the standstill benefit,in terms of asset classification,to accounts with an outstand-ing loan of �6,200 crore. It hasmade a provision of 15% aggre-gating �938 crore on theseloans. Domestic net interestmargin (NIM) stood at 2.94 percent in January-March, 2019-20 as compared to 3.02 % in theyear-ago period.

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The country’s foreignexchange reserves surged

$3.43 billion to a fresh all-timehigh of $493.48 billion for theweek ended May 29 on a hand-some accretion of the core cur-rency assets, the RBI said. Thereserves, which are counted as akey strength as the country facesthe economic impact of theCovid-19 pandemic, had risenby $3 billion to an all-time highof USD 490.044 billion in theprevious week. During the weekended May 29, foreign curren-cy assets, a major component ofthe overall reserves, increased by$3.50 billion to $455.21 billion,data from the RBI showed

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US unemployment droppedunexpectedly in May to

13.3 per cent as reopened busi-nesses began recalling millionsof workers faster than econo-mists had predicted, triggeringa rally on Friday on Wall Street and givingPresident Donald Trumpsomething to boast about amidhis reelection bid.

The jobless rate is still onpar with what the nation wit-nessed during the GreatDepression. And for the secondstraight month, the LaborDepartment acknowledgedmaking errors in counting theunemployed during the coro-navirus outbreak, saying thereal figure is even worse thanthe numbers indicate.

Still, after weeks of direpredictions by economists thatunemployment in May couldhit 20% or more, the news thatthe economy added a surpris-ing 2.5 million jobs last monthwas seen as evidence that thecollapse may have bottomedout in April at 14.7% and thata recovery is well underway asstates loosen their lockdownsand let stores, restaurants, gymsand other businesses reopen.

“We are witnessing theeasiest phase of growth as peo-ple come off temporary layoffsand come back to their employ-ers,” said Harvard Universityeconomist Jason Furman, wholed the White House Council ofEconomic Advisers during theObama presidency. “And onceemployers are done recallingpeople, the much harder, longerwork of recovery will have toproceed.”

Most economists had

expected rehiring to kick in as shutdowns wereincreasingly lifted and peoplegradually resumed shoppingand eating out.

“The surprising thing hereis the timing and that it hap-pened as quickly as it did,” saidAdam Kamins, senior region-al economist at Moody’sAnalytics.

On Wall Street, the S&P500 was up 2.6% around mid-day on the news.

An exultant Trump seizedon the report as evidence thatthe economy is going to comeback from the coronavirus cri-sis like a “rocket ship.”

“This shows that whatwe’ve been doing is right,” saidthe president, who has pushedgovernors aggressively toreopen their economies amidwarnings from public healthofficials that the country is risk-ing a second wave of infectionson top of the one that has killedover 100,000 Americans.

Still, the job market is insuch a deep hole that it couldtake years to dig out, econo-mists say. Most are forecastingunemployment in the highsingle-digits or low double-dig-its by the end of this year.

Economists had expectedthe government to report thatemployers shed 8.5 millionmore jobs in May on top of the21.4 million lost in March andApril.

Instead, nearly all indus-tries added jobs, a sharp rever-sal from April, when almost allcut them. Hotels and restau-rants added 1.2 million jobs inMay, after shedding 7.5 million.Retailers gained 368,000, afterlosing nearly 2.3 million in theprevious month.

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The GST Council is sched-uled to meet on June 12

and likely to discuss the impactof the COVID-19 pandemic ontax revenues, sources said.

The 40th meeting of theGST Council, headed byFinance Minister NirmalaSitharaman and comprisingstate counterparts, will be heldvia video conferencing. Themeeting would discuss theimpact of the pandemic on rev-enues of the Centre and statesand ways to bridge the revenuegap, sources said. Faced withdismal collection and extend-ed deadline for filing returns,the Government has refrainedfrom releasing the monthlyGST revenue collection figuresfor the months of April andMay.

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Power distribution utilities’debt will hit an all-time

high of �4.5 lakh crore by theend of the ongoing financialyear, CRISIL Ratings said onFriday.

The liquidity package of�90,000 crore announced bythe Government last monthoffers a breather, but structur-al reforms have become criti-cal to sustainability of dis-coms, the rating agency said ina statement. The package willhelp state power distributioncompanies (discoms) settle asignificant portion of theiroverdue bills to generatingcompanies, it said.

However, it noted thatwith power demand weak andcash losses high amid theCOVID-19 pandemic, discomswould end up owing lenders astaggering �4.5 lakh crore bythe end of 2020-21, or 30 percent more than that in the lastfiscal. Such a material increasein debt would deteriorate thecredit profiles of discoms andmake structural reforms criti-cal to their sustainability, astudy of 34 State discoms (from15 states), which account forover 80% of India’s powerdemand, shows, CRISIL stated.According to it, presently, onlyone in five discoms is capableof servicing debt through owncash flows and budgeted sub-sidies. The scenario wouldworsen this fiscal because ofweak demand for power.

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Reliance Industries on Fridayannounced the sale of 1.85

per cent stake in its digital unitto Abu Dhabi-based sovereigninvestor Mubadala for �9,093.60 crore, the sixth deal inas many weeks that will injecta combined �87,655.35 crore inthe oil-to-telecom conglom-erate to help it pare debt.

“Mubadala InvestmentCompany (Mubadala), willinvest �9,093.60 crore in JioPlatforms at an equity value of� 4.91 lakh crore and an enter-prise value of �5.16 lakh crore,”the company said in a state-ment. With this investment, JioPlatforms has raised �87,655.35 crore from leadingglobal technology and growthinvestors including Facebook,Silver Lake, Vista EquityPartners, General Atlantic,KKR and Mubadala in less thansix weeks.

Facebook picked up 9.99per cent stake in the firm thathouses India’s youngest butlargest telecom firm on April 22for �43,574 crore. Within daysof that deal, Silver Lake — theworld’s largest tech investor —bought a 1.15 per cent stake in Jio Platforms for�5,665.75 crore.

On May 8, US-based VistaEquity Partners bought 2.32per cent stake in Jio Platformsfor �11,367 crore. On May 17,global equity firm General

Atlantic picked up 1.34 per centstake in Jio Platforms for �6,598.38 crore.

This was followed by USprivate equity giant KKR buy-ing 2.32 per cent for �11,367crore. Jio Platforms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RelianceIndustries Ltd, is a next-gen-eration technology company.Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd,with 388 million mobile sub-scribers, will continue to be awholly-owned subsidiary ofJio Platforms.

Mukesh Ambani,Chairman and ManagingDirector of Reliance Industries,said Mubadala is one of themost astute and transforma-tional global growth investors.

“Through my longstand-ing ties with Abu Dhabi, I havepersonally seen the impact ofMubadala’s work in diversify-ing and globally connecting theUAE’s knowledge-based econ-omy.

We look forward to bene-fitting from Mubadala’s expe-rience and insights from sup-porting growth journeys acrossthe world,” he said.

Khaldoon Al Mubarak,Managing Director and GroupCEO, Mubadala InvestmentCompany, said: “We are com-mitted to investing in, andactively working with, highgrowth companies which arepioneering technologies toaddress critical challenges andunlock new opportunities.”

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The IMF has asked cash-strapped Pakistan to freeze

salaries of Governmentemployees and adhere to thefiscal consolidation path byshowing a nominal primarydeficit in the new budget dueto the unsustainable publicdebt that is set to hit 90 per centof the total value of the nation-al economy.

Pakistan is finding ithard to concede to the twodemands but the IMF is insist-ing that the country shouldcontinue to follow the fiscalconsolidation path due to thehigh and unsustainable publicdebt, the Express Tribunereported on Friday.

Owing to the prevailingtight fiscal situation, growingpublic debt and Pakistan’s deci-sion to seek debt relief from G-20 countries.

The InternationalMonetary Fund has askedIslamabad to freeze salaries ofGovernment employees, thedaily reported, citing sources inthe Ministry of Finance.

However, the Governmentis resisting the demand due tohigh inflation that has erodedpeople’s real income.Nonetheless, it is inclined toabolish over 67,000 posts thathave remained vacant for overone year and is also ready tofurther squeeze current expen-ditures including a ban onpurchase of vehicles.

The IMF’s key demand,which was also the reason forseeking to freeze the salaries,was that the governmentshould announce a primarybudget deficit target – totaldeficit excluding interest pay-ments – of only �184 billion or0.4 per cent of gross domesticproduct (GDP).

Pakistan has its own rea-sons for resisting the IMF’sdemands as it does not see asignificant jump in revenue col-lection in the next fiscal yeardue to the prevailing econom-ic conditions.

The Government is alsoinclined to give a raise insalaries due to high inflationthat has eroded the real incomeof people, the daily reported.

Washington: Global marketsrose on Friday and Wall Streetfutures as investors awaitedthe US jobs report for May,which is expected to showanother surge in unemploy-ment in the world’s largesteconomy.

Germany’s DAX gained 1.7per cent to 12,643 and theCAC 40 in Paris added 1.9 percent to 5,108. Britain’s FTSE 100rose 1.3 per cent to 6,421.Futures for the Dow were up 1.3per cent while those for the S&P500 were 0.8 per cent higher.Economists expect the LaborDepartment’s monthly jobsreport for May to show employ-ers slashed 8.5 million jobslast month, down from 20.5million in April. That wouldpush the unemployment rate tonearly 20 per cent from about15 per cent. AP

Kolkata: During the lockdown,works of Noapara-Bimanbander Metro ExtensionProject have been going onsmoothly. Excavation of tun-nel of this Metro project hasbeen started. Base concrete ofGrade M-20 for bottom slab ofthe tunnel has been completedrecently. Casting work of thetop slab is in progress.

Two numbers of PSC BoxGirders of 20-22 m span havebeen safely unloaded in thisperiod with the help of a main

crane of 600 MT capacity.Casting of five numbers of

PSC 1 girder of 20-22 m spanhas been completed duringthe lockdown period. Socialdistancing, sanitization, cover-ing faces with masks.

New Delhi: The WorldEnvironment Day wasobserved in ChittaranjanLocomotive Works (CLW).

In view of prevailingCovid-19 situation, e-posters &e-presentation on “CelebrateBiodiversity” theme are pre-pared for raising awarenessamongst the CLW employeesand family members.

No gathering, communityprogrammes are organised.

CLW employees and theirfamily members are informedto save our mother earth andjoin in large numbers to buildit back for a better tomorrowthrough electronic and socialmedia.

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�What was the best thing aboutyour character in SupermanReturns?

Brandon Routh: The bestthing was that I get to play‘Superman’. It was fun to portraythis character, who has so muchhistory. The character had manylayers to it. Sometimes when I meetkids or even grownups for that mat-ter, who have seen me in the suit,they seem nervous while shakinghands. Kids barely can look at youbecause, you are The Superman,who saves the world from fallingapart. It feels amazing to be people’sfavourite.

�How did you manage to bringout the differences betweenSuperman and Clark Kent?

Brandon: Well, as you know,they’re the same person but theyserve different purpose. We firstmade a difference between thetwo physically. We had Supermanmove very gracefully, kingly andhave a great presence. And as forClark, some people would describehim bumbling. He is just very excit-ed to be around and talk to Loisbecause this is the only waySuperman talks to anybody,through Clark. He is the social facefor Superman. So that’s the differ-ence I guess, one is calm andother one is very excited. And play-ing two characters in a single film

was a similar experience as playingtwo different characters in twofilms.

�How did you prepare for therole?

Brandon: We did a lot ofpreparation including physicalweight training and putting onmuscles. I worked with a move-ment coach, moving the two char-acters differently and how to makeflying look cool. We also indulgedin a lot of conservation with Bryanabout the story, plot points, themotions involved in the film, imag-

ining what the character would belike and what will the people wantto see. Putting the body-huggingsuit on for the first time was a lit-tle awkward because I was in theroom with all the casting. But it waytoo cool later.

�What was it like working with

Bryan Singer? How is he as adirector?

Brandon: He is great person-ality. Bryan has an amazing abil-ity to be creative on the spot. Heis open to changing the shot or aline, if he feels it is not working.There were some discrepanciesbecause it was a huge script and

sometimes things didn’t quitetranslate well, so we were able tochange those. It was great of himfor communicating that with me.He was so passionate about thecharacters in the script and knewhe had an opinion. He could giveme his views and I had mine so ithelped.

�What was it playing Lois Lane?Kate Bosworth: My favourite

thing about her was that she appearsto be such a modern-day woman, nomatter which era she’s been depict-ed in. I love that she is respected byso many different people and isattractive to men because of her intel-ligence. She is feisty and passionate.What I enjoyed the most about play-ing this role was that she does seemso different than the past perfor-mances. Lois has a son and a fiancé.Her heart is broken by Superman, soshe has got more battle wounds. Shefeels a little more grown up now.

�What was it like being rigged upto fly?

Kate: Initially, it was a pretty awk-ward experience. To be honest I’mkind of claustrophobic. So when

you put on the harness, the body suitand the costume over that, you feelrestricted in a lot of ways. But whenyou’re hooked up and actuallydoing those flying scenes, it’s all soworth it.

�Did you research as to how thecharacter has been portrayed in thepast?

Kate: I actually made a very con-scious decision not to watch past per-formances before I played her. I hadseen the 1978 version when I was sixor seven, so it was years ago. Iremember the magic of that, theessence of Lois but the character wasso different in the scripts given to me.That was Bryan’s vision and I thoughtthat it was interesting. I really want-ed the audience to feel that she’schanged.

�How was your experience workingwith Brandon?

Kate: Brandon is one of the kind-est and loveliest people you will evermeet. He does have the quality ofbeing a Superman. He has that purelook in his eyes and carries the kind-ness in his heart. People mightunderestimate his ability but I thinkit’s one of the hardest roles to playbecause it can be so easily overdone.He played it with much confidenceand subtlety.

(Watch the film on June 7 at 9 pmon Sony PIX.)

On a typical Sunday evening of1990s in the then Calcutta,the streets of Hatibagan were

spilling with people and there was noplace to park the car. The reason wasnot far to be sought. The seven the-atre houses surrounding the streetwere holding their public pre-mieres, the tickets of which soldout quickly. The auditoriumswere decorated with flowergarlands and some playhous-es even distributed sweets.Sujoy Prosad Chatterjeehad gone to watch BhaaloKharap Meye that starredthe much-acclaimed

Aparna Sen in the lead.His father, “a typical South

Calcutta man,” always found itdifficult to park his car in the rathercongested theatre alley. His moth-er walked out of the car to speak tothe box-office person and shemanaged to get the tickets. “Howdid you do that?” asked Sujoywith a surprised look. Well, shesaid, “Look, I am a NorthCalcutta-bred girl. I may notspeak like your father but I docarry an artsy smile!” Thethree burst into a hearty laughand together walked into theBiswarupa theatre.

Cut to today, when onetakes a walk through the area,the erstwhile ‘Theatre Para’ or

the ‘Broadway of Bengal,’ one isonly met by the dilapidated aban-

doned playhouses that line thestreets of North Kolkata. From the1970s till the late 1990s, these theatreswere very popular. These culturalspaces thrived on making a differ-ence, yet held on to a unique tradi-tion. However, their decline came bysoon. Actors would be greeted byempty halls, producers started facinggreat losses, the funds saw crunch-es, the TV era had hugely set in.Later, in early 2000s, whileRangmahal (a theatre house in thenCalcutta) was converted into a wed-ding hall, mysterious fires guttedhalls like Star Theatre and consumedthe remains of Biswarupa. Perhaps,the fires, ironically, meant the declineof this once-famed culture of the city.

Sujoy’s docu-film Spotlightreflects on how moving from the bigstage to the little screen, it is nowmore important than ever to realisethe power of theatre and how it cancreate a conduit for empathy, benudged towards compassion for thedowntrodden, and be constituted asa community of support.

EXCERPTS:

�How did you conceptualise thefilm?

My Montreal-based friendsAbhishek Ghosh and ShyamosreeGhosh and I have been hugelyinterested in cultural archiving andwe have been thinking of manyideas to approach this.

Meanwhile, I had also beenreading The Firebird by SaikatMajumdar and found it quiteintriguing. The book, told throughthe perspective of a 10-year-old boynamed Ori, looks at the heydays ofthe commercial Bengali theatre andits subsequent death. What’s inter-esting is that the narrative touchesupon the heritage through the eyesof a boy whose mother was a partof it. I think this was primarily themuse of Spotlight, the docu-narra-tive that I have conceptualised.

�What was the research workinvolved? How long did it take foryou to complete the film?

The research and the build-uphas been done by a young theatri-cian, Rudrarup Mukhopadhyay. I,too, contribute often and it’s been amonth that we are trying to collateas much as we can. A very impor-tant part of this research is theposters, advertisements, lobby cardsof the plays, which have been pro-vided by Sounak Chacraverti, anacclaimed art curator and archivist.I am also speaking to a lot of insiders and audience for the

documentation.

�What do you think was the causeof Broadway of Bengal’s declineand how have you reflected that inyour film?

The main cause of the declineis the paradigm shift in the patternof entertainment. Going to the the-atre for a Sunday matinee andcatching the evening train back wasan important practice for the audi-ence who lived in the hinterland.People were willing to pay to watcha Sabitri Chatterjee or a SoumitraChatterjee play within the social dis-tance of the proscenium. The idiotbox or the television began show-casing these actors with regularviewing in soaps and, of course, thewhole experience of going to a play-house became secondary, gradual-ly.

The crunch for funds became apertinent reason too. Theatre pro-ducers never had an organised car-tel and what spelled the doomfinally was the rise of multiplexes.I think the government also didnothing absolutely to preserve orsupport this very important part ofour cultural history. Can I say thattheatre was also not a “social respon-sibility” for corporates?

In the film, what we havereflected through the interview ofcontemporary theatre practitionerSohag Sen, is the birth of an alter-native theatre movement that drovethe audience to the Academy of FineArts.

�The documentary features manyknown thespians and actors withwhom the youngsters would con-nect better. Do you think this willhelp them know the Bengali the-atre’s essence in a more nuancedway?

Well, I’d say, yes and no, both.Heritage doesn’t require celebrityendorsements. I had requested actorNeeraj Kabi to read from TheFirebird in the film because of hisartistry and not just his stint in thereel world. But yes, if today a mil-lennial watches the film and buys acopy of the book after hearingNeeraj, no harm is done.

Another interesting aspect isthat we have the legendary SoumitraChatterjee and theatre actressPoulami Bose reading the play,Neelkantho, that ran to packedhouses in Rangmahal.

We also have Ratna Ghoshalreading from Nohobot, which ranfor 1,600 nights in Tapan Theatre.She had essayed the central charac-ter Keya, in the play, directed by theveteran Satya Bandopadhyay.

I think today’s generation ofyoung actors can also look forwardto thespian Bratya Basu, who hasdone the prologue for the film. Wehave actually used a clipping fromhis popular play, Awddyo SheshRajani, based on the life and timesof Ashim Chakraborty. His play,Barbodhu is a pivotal point in thehistory of the Broadway of Bengal.Daminee Benny Basu also sings theclosing song from the play.

�Given today’s scenario, what doyou think is the future of theatressince social distancing and self-quarantine are here to stay forsome time now?

I have been myself a part of anonline play, Lockdown Diaries,directed by Souptic Chakrabortyand will soon be acting in its sequelcalled Unlockdown Diaries, whichwill be streamed online on June 14.

The first edition turned out tobe hugely successful and that’s whythe sequel was planned. Yes, we haveto think of digital productionskeeping in mind the pandemic butthe struggle for the other people intheatre fraternity still remainsunsorted.

Many light designers haveresorted to selling vegetables andcasual workers are looking for alter-native professions to earn theirlivelihood. The future looks bleakunless we move into the intimate

format completely with select audi-ence.

�How do you think theatre will beable to fight the current pandem-ic because such places might beshut for a long time?

I sincerely pray and hope thattheatres open, maintaining the safe-ty protocol and the sanitisation. It’stoo early to say that the futurebelongs to the digital space com-pletely. Yes, it can be explored as aninterim option but how can oneexperience the illusions of darknessand light on the stage on the inter-net? The third bell pumps up anactor’s adrenaline and the applausefrom a live audience is a momentthat can never be replaced by 2,000likes and 100 comments.

�Many world theatres have nowbrought the stage home for peoplethrough online shows. Do youthink Broadway of Bengal mighthave the chance to revive itself dig-itally now?

The Broadway cannot beenlivened digitally. One can talkabout it and even share videos oflegends. I would like to mentionhere that Theatre Sansriti, led byDebesh Chattopadhyay, is doingsome phenomenal archive work bysharing documentaries on Bengalitheatre legends like RamaprasadBanik, Tripti Mitra, Utpal Dutta,Asit Mukhopadhyay and the likes,who were essentially a part of thealternative theatre movement thatthe intelligentsia adhered to. There’spractically nothing on theBroadway.

�You had earlier mentioned thatyou have experienced a large partof this Broadway and have atrove of memories. Could youshare some of your personal anec-dotes associated with the theatresin Bengal?

Oh yes! My maternal homewas in the northern fringes ofCalcutta, precisely Beadon Street.This was very close to the theatredistrict. I remember the huge cut-outs of characters from plays likeAsleel, Bibor, Kone Bibhrat andmany others right at the junctionof the street. My maternal grand-mother had a deep interest in playsand she used to organise compli-mentary passes for us to watch thepremieres.

(The film will release on Youtubeby the channel, GhoshCompany.)

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Atrue revival means nothing lessthan a revolution,” AndrewMurray once said.

We are known for our rich heritageand culture. Handmade art and craft isintrinsic to these. But overtime, some ofour unsung, hidden treasures such asdabu printing and indigo dyeing, are fad-ing. They need slight propelling to comeout in open and make their place. Artist,poet and filmmaker, Sangeeta Gupta,explores both the techniques to create amassive 606 feet painting bathed inIndigo — Adiyogi Shiva: A journey inCosmic Indigo, as she believes we have toreturn to the basics if we want to survivepeacefully.

�How did you conceptualise the idea?I wanted to create a positive impact

about sustainable living, clothing, textileart and our age old natural dyes andcolours, especially, indigo. During avisit to Jaipur in December last year, I hadan opportunity to visit Ratelia Village inSanganer, where I painted a fabric withnatural indigo. It was exciting. Since then,I have been conceptualising this paint-ing. I had made all related sketches ingreat detail before executing this project.I am an abstract artist and Shiv is pureabstraction. Therefore, I decided to workon the, Aadiyogi Shiv, who combines themasculine and feminine energies with-in himself as he is the Ardhnarishwar,(half-male and half-female) which I findunique and appealing as a woman and anartist.

�What went into its making?The theme of the painting is Shiv, as

I am drawn towards MahamrityunjayaMantra and Nirvana Shatkum composedby Aadi Shankaracharya. The text ispainted in natural indigo and the 200metres, of hand spun khaddar is paint-ed with dabu, traditionally used by blockprinters of Rajasthan. After painting itwith dabu, it was sun-dried. Post that itwas soaked in drums of indigo dye andthen washed and dried again.

I completed 185 metres in nine daysat Sanganer and then had to return toDelhi in March because Coronavirus hadstarted spreading in areas close to Jaipur.I will get this registered for a worldrecord. Though it was not a consciousdecision when I started. It happenedwhile I was in the process of executingit on account of my passion for sustain-able development. Art and literature are

my lifeline. Both bring pure joy to me.

�What does A Journey in Cosmic Indigosignify? Did you blend the nativeIndigo with some modern techniques?

We have to return to the basics if wewant to survive in peace. Handmade fab-ric, natural colour and dye are environ-ment-friendly and chemical-free. I havecreated this abstract, conceptual, mini-

malist painting through organic ways topromote sustainable living and naturalindigo as this aims at its revival. I wantto encourage this cash crop as a massmovement to make it a commercially

viable venture for farmers, dyers andcraftsmen.

�How was it possible to create a 606feet masterpiece joining 71 khaddarpaintings in mere eight days?

We are on this planet to experiencelife in its entirety. Each one of us has ourown share of struggles and challenges andit wasn’t different for me. But I faced itwith grit and determination.

I was secretive about the wholeprocess as it was pretty much about myendurance too. It was a challenge to myphysical limitations because I had metwith an accident in March last year whenI smashed my right wrist. Though, Icould paint and do all that was requiredbut making a 100 metre painting at astretch was my ultimate test. I was notcompeting with anyone or for any worldrecord but was challenging myself toexplore the physical and mental bound-aries that I had.

It seemed that Shiv and the wholeuniverse was on my side because to mysurprise I found that I intended to paint100 metres but went on to finish 185metres. That just happened by accident.I kept on asking my workers about themeasurements of the fabric. The sameday I checked the world records and wasamused to realise that I had created a newone by making the longest painting. Thatis the power of one’s spirit.

�The painting depicts the variousaspects of Shiv Shakti in a nuanced way.Did you do any research for it?

I have always been a spirituallyinclined person but with maturity, myinterest in the eternal cosmic entity —Shiv — became deeper. He isomnipresent, both inside and outside us.We are all connected and originate fromone source, god.

It all started during my early child-

hood. My grandfather had a great influ-ence on my spiritual upbringing. Kashmirreiterated my faith in the universal prin-ciple of Shivohum, while I was postedthere for two years. I realised that thewhole universe is Shiv, there is no begin-ning, no end. I believe in oneness of thewhole, Ekam.

When an artist is at peace with her-self, subject and medium merge. If youare experiencing love, compassion andbliss, the medium doesn’t bothers you. Ifyou are connected with the universe,every thing unfolds before you. I just hadto train my hands a bit to use dabu as amedium on fabric. When artists workthey are in solitude, preoccupied withtheir creativity.

�There is a growing concern that ourancient crafts are dying. What hasbeen your experience?

Yes, it is a serious concern. Artisansand craftsmen need not only the supportof the government but people too. Theircreative ventures need to become com-mercially viable. This is one of the rea-sons why I took it upon myself to revivethe age old techniques by making it con-temporary and innovative.

�Since there will be a rise in Indianbrands in the post-pandemic world, doyou think it will bring out more age-oldtechniques?

Yes, hopefully it should, provided, wemake all the right moves and sincerelywork for it. It will be a great revival of ourrich heritage and the restoration of ourcreative labour too. Handmade art andcraft is so intrinsic to our culture andabundantly available in our country.The intent to promote it in a big way hasbeen lacking so far. However, I am opti-mistic and enthusiastic about it and shalldo what I can for its survival and revival,both.

Several series on Natural History haveshown us the world the way that we

could’ve never imagine. While thesemoments captured on camera take us ona roller-coaster of emotions, the biggestquestion that perplexes everyone is,“How did they even shoot that?” The lat-est anthology, Stories Behind Stories, cov-ers the making of the most celebratedshows of all times — each revolutionaryin its own way. Filmed over years, eachseries reveals an unseen side of nature andwildlife. It includes the ‘making of ’ ofsome of the landmark series — SevenWorlds, One Planet, Dynasties, The Hunt,Planet Earth II, uncovering the action onthe other side of the camera, the dedicat-ed crew who risk their life while filming,the kind of research and preparation thatgoes into capturing every small shot, thelife-risking challenges they face, the cut-ting-edge technology that’s developed,especially for the shows and even the funanecdotes.

�Why did you choose Asia for shooting? It is the largest continent on earth,

covering one third of the world’s surface.It presents a lovely but massive challengewhen it comes to finding stories. Rightfrom the jungles of Indonesia to the highArctic in Russia, you’ve got absolutelyeverything to choose from. What wewanted to focus on was how the animalscoped with living in such vast landscapes.Asia’s geological history is also a key partof the story. Around 30 million years ago,India crashed into the rest of Asia, form-ing the Himalayas which changed thelandscape entirely. As a result, Asia,today, is a world of extremes. It has thehottest deserts, the highest mountains andall of it stems from its geology. We madea real effort to look at those different envi-ronments and most importantly, to findstories that have never been done before.In addition, we wanted to show the impactthat people are having on the environmentand the wildlife living there today becausethat are a really important part of everycontinent’s story.

�What was it like filming the goldensnub-nosed monkeys in central China?

The high mountain ranges in centralChina are remote and have been largelyinaccessible to film crews. Yet for hun-dreds of years, stories of the ‘AbominableSnowman’ have emanated from thisregion. This is where the story of the Yeti(strange, scary-looking people thatnobody knew anything about) comes

from. Actually, Yeti is a golden, snub-nosed monkey. They’re absolutely incred-ible because they walk upright like we doand the males have got ginormous feet.They like little people and they’ve got phe-nomenal colours on them. The monkeysare a little bit of a holy grail for sir David.It’s something that he had heard describedin scientific papers in the early 60s but hasnever had the opportunity to see. So it wasreally cool to be able to come back andshow him that footage because he was justblown away by how they looked and sur-vived. They have these big, shaggy coatsand cuddle to stay warm. The families arebonded and reliant on each other as with-out somebody to cuddle, the babieswould die very quickly in the winter there.They were a joy to be able to film and ajoy to be able to show David.

�What did you find out about theSumatran Rhino Serenade?

For me, the most important thingabout making these films is where you seesomething in the natural world, and youjust can’t believe it’s true. That’s where thejoy comes from. One real highlight wasour story about the Sumatran Rhino. Thejungles of Indonesia are rich and dense,which means the animals there have a realproblem finding each other. I’ve been tolots of jungles before, but here, while I waslooking at the way animals talk to eachother, I came across this sound, whichsounded like a whale. I played it to theteam and made everyone guess what itwas. Nobody guessed it correctly. Itturned out to be a Sumatran Rhino. Wefilmed them mostly because of their wayof communicating but also because theyare one of the rarest species on earth. Therhino we filmed was born in 2000. Theyused to be widespread across SouthernAsia and now, there are only 300 left. Theupper estimate is 70. The lower estimateis 30. The decline in the number is a com-bination of poaching and loss of habitatto timber and palm oil production.

We filmed them in a protected area,which is the only place you can possiblysee them. All I had heard of the singingrhino was an old bit of sound footage that

was recorded at a zoo in America. There’salmost nothing known about why they doit or the meaning of their vocalisations,other than that the females and the malesuse the song as part of their way of meet-ing up. So I wasn’t sure what we weregoing to experience when we went in thefield but almost as soon as we got there,we could hear the female singing. It wasquite loud.

�What do you have to say aboutAustralia?

Australia’s story across time is that itused to be attached to Antarctica. Thenit split from Antarctica and it has beenmoving north. When it split, a raft of ani-mals — marsupials, reptiles, birds — wereseparated off and marooned. As a result,most of the animals in Australia are foundnowhere else. It’s a continent of weirdos,beautiful animals, things you haven’tseen in other places. What I loved at thebeginning of this process is you ask a lotof people what lives in Australia and they’llsay kangaroos and koalas... and then theyget stuck. Yet there’s this amazing array ofanimals that have been stranded there formillions and millions of years. Australiaover time has been getting hotter and hot-ter. When it separated from Antarctica,it was basically all forest. Now it’s almostall desert. That’s quite a story to tell in itself.

�Can you tell us more about cas-sowaries?

The cassowary is Australia’s ostrich.It’s the world’s deadliest bird and it livesin the deep jungle in the north ofAustralia, which is the oldest jungle onearth. That jungle was walked bydinosaurs and basically when dinosaursbecame extinct, cassowaries took theirplace. We filmed a cassowary, but they areincredibly secretive and very hard to spot.You don’t see them until you’ve stood nextto them and then they get cross. Youwouldn’t accidentally walk up to a lion butyou might accidentally walk up to cas-sowary. The females stand about six feettall, the males more like five feet. But theyrear up above head height and they haveclaws on their feet that are longer thanvelociraptor’s. They can run upto 30 mph,jump five feet in the air and can swim too.So if you surprise them, you’re done for.That’s why they’re the world’s deadliestbird. Two of our Australian cameramenstaked out the forest for a long time untilwe worked out where this male cassowarywas going to be. We had to put out cam-era traps and do our own fieldwork, butwe managed to film this male looking afterhis chicks in this forest. I’ve wanted to filmthem for several years and that forest isjust quite a magical place for me. The audi-ence would be literally looking at whatdinosaurs would have seen.

�How did drone technology help youmake Seven Worlds, One Planet?

On Planet Earth II, we were usingdrones, but even three or four years ago,they were quite heavy-duty things. Nowthe technology is so much better that we’reable to use the drones with almost all ofthe animals that we’ve filmed. It can makea big difference in the behaviour you cansee. In the Australia episode, for example,we filmed a shark aggregation which onlyhappens every 15 years. It’s sharks on a baitball off the West coast of Australia onIngle, and if you were filming that fromthe sea on about, you would just see a hellof a lot of splashing around and some fins.Get a drone up in the air and suddenlyyou can see the shark’s tactics, what theyare doing and not just that, you can seethe bait ball at one point got up to some-thing like 15 kilometres. We have shots ofthousands of sharks all at once comingtogether. For me, that’s the magic ofdrones.

(Tune in to Stories Behind Stories onJune 8 at 9 pm on Sony BBC Earth.)

Actor Ayushmann Khurrana is widely regard-ed as the socially-conscious star who

stands up to raise his voice on issues that affecthim deeply. The star is now urging people tobe judicious in terms of water consumption andbatting for preserving the resource at a timewhen water scarcity is plaguing people acrossthe globe.

The actorhas come for-ward to supportactress BhumiPednekar’s ini-tiative ClimateWarrior that istrying to raiseawareness onseveral impor-tant issuesplaguing our cli-mate through acampaign calledOne Wish ForThe Earth.Bhumi’s cam-paign will seeB o l l y w o o d ’sthought leaderscome forward to

discuss climate justice. The platform will see thestars urge citizens to take climate change seri-ously and, along with them, also do their bit toprotect the planet.

“These are exceptional times that we haveseen in the last few months. It’s time to wakeup, take notice and participate,” he says, adding,“This environment day my one wish for theearth is or rather request for all of us to use waterwisely. It is a scarce resource and right now weare even more dependent on it to wash ourhands at regular intervals to battle this pandem-ic.”

He asks citizens to be conscious that theyneed to preserve water because it impacts many.He urges for unity in protecting people’s rightfor water. The star says, “In the endeavour tokeep ourselves safe, we should not forgetabout the bigger goal. We need to use waterwisely so that our future generations have itenough and more. It’s my humble request to allof you to become climate warriors and worktowards a clean and a green future.”

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Premier League leadersLiverpool could claim afirst title for 30 years at

Anfield after theinitial batch of fix-tures of the restartwas announced onFriday.

Jurgen Klopp’smen, with a com-manding 25-pointlead at the top ofthe table, were justtwo wins away from clinchingthe title before coronavirusforced the suspension of footballin March.

Liverpool’s first match backis against Everton on June 21.The Merseyside derby is due totake place at Goodison Park, lessthan a mile from Anfield, but avenue has not been confirmedby the Premier League.

Crystal Palace will then visitAnfield three days later.

Wins in both of thosematches would guaranteeLiverpool’s first English top-flight title since 1990.

But if Manchester City loseat home to Arsenal on June 17,the Reds would be champions ifthey beat Everton.

Liverpool City Council’ssafety advisory group will meetnext week to make a decision onwhether the game can go aheadat Goodison or should be movedto a neutral venue.

All remaining 92 PremierLeague games this season will beplayed behind closed doors, butthere are fears that hosting thegame in Liverpool could encour-age supporters to congregatearound stadiums.

Palace’s trip to Anfield willkick off at 2015 local time (1915GMT).

The only other match thatcould be moved to a neutralvenue from the first threerounds of fixtures is Liverpool’svisit to City on July 2.

The mayor of Liverpool, JoeAnderson, voiced fears that“there would be many thousandsof people who would turn up

outside Anfield” on the dayLiverpool’s long wait for a leaguetitle was ended.

That has been disputed bythe club, who said they haveengaged with supporters’ groupsto make sure social-distancingguidelines are followed.

Aston Villa will host

Sheffield United in the firstmatch of Project Restart, fol-lowed by Arsenal’s trip to Cityon June 17.

Manchester United’s visitto Tottenham will spearhead thefirst full round of matches spreadover four days from June 19 to22.

Premier League chief exec-utive Richard Masters said: “Weknow it won’t be the same with-out our loyal supporters in sta-diums but, together with ourbroadcast partners, we are able

to ensure fans can watch or lis-ten to each match live fromhome.” “I am delighted we areable to take another positive steptowards the season returning injust under two weeks’ time,” headded.

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Lionel Messi has sustained a“minor” thigh injury, but

Barcelona remain confidenthe will be fit for the team’s firstgame back against Mallorca onJune 13, the club said onFriday.

Messi has not trained withthe rest of the squad sinceTuesday after working sepa-rately in the gym on bothWednesday and Friday, whileon Thursday all the playerswere given the day off.

Barcelona said Messishould return to training “in afew days’ time”, but his absenceraises doubts over his fitnessahead of the trip to Mallorca.

Like all La Liga teams,Barca will have had only 10

days to train together whencompetitive matches resumeon June 11, following the

three-month break due to thecoronavirus pandemic.

“Leo Messi has a minorright quadriceps injury andtrained in isolation, doing spe-cific exercises to avoid unnec-essary risks with just eightdays remaining before Barcafinally get back to playingmatches,” a club statementread.

“He should be able torejoin his team-mates in a fewdays’ time.”

Messi has endured aninjury-interrupted season. The32-year-old was out for sixweeks between August andSeptember with a calf injuryand then at the end ofSeptember missed anotherweek with a problem in his leftthigh.

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South Africa cricketer AndilePhehlukwayo believes

Proteas aren’t too far awayfrom ending their World Cupdrought despite their woefulperformance in the showpieceevent in England and Wales lastyear.

South Africa managed towin just three matches out ofnine and crashed out in theleague stage itself with justseven points.

Phehlukwayo, who waspart of the South Africa WorldCup squad in 2019, feels theyounger generation is hungryto perform on the biggest stageand that might turn their for-tunes around at the multi-national ICC events in thefuture.

“I really believe it will hap-pen. Maybe it didn’t look likeit at the 2019 World Cup,where we really didn’t look aftersituations that on normal occa-sions we would take care of, butif you look at the current gen-eration, it’s a lot of new playerswho are really hungry to per-form,” Phehlukwayo was quot-ed as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

“Even in our currentrebuilding phase, we havemanaged to beat strong teamswho already have their formu-la set. It’s all about the mind-set. Our brand is work inprogress but we all know wherewe want to be. We are fullycommitted.”

The 24-year considershimself to be an all-rounder,despite him doing better withthe ball in recent times. In 58ODIs, he has managed to scorejust 563 runs while he hasscalped 69 wickets. In 27 T20Is,he has scored just 92 runs butpicked 35 wickets.

“I believe I’m a genuine all-rounder because I can wingames with bat or ball, but Iunderstand that those argu-ments about the kind of play-er someone is would look atthe stats,” Phehlukwayo said.

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Chelsea are closing in on adeal to sign striker Timo

Werner from RB Leipzig,British media reported onThursday.

The 24-year-old had beenthought to to be attractinginterest from Premier Leaguechampions-elect Liverpool butit appears Chelsea have in factmet the German’s reportedrelease clause of some £53million ($67 million).

Were Chelsea to bringWerner to Stamford Bridge itwould be a major feather in thecap of the west London club.

For the past year there hasbeen speculation linkingWerner with a move to Anfieldbut time appears to be runningout for the Reds, with the for-ward’s release clause expiringon June 15 — two days beforethe Premier League is set torestart.

The Germany internation-al has scored 31 goals forLeipzig in all competitions.

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������*������ ��� ����C!����:+�0������� Italian football willresume with the secondlegs of the Italian Cupsemifinals on June 12 and13.

Sports MinisterVincenzo Spadaforaannounced Thursday that the

competition can resume one dayearlier than previouslyscheduled.

While league officialshad not yet officiallyreleased the schedule,Juventus is expected to host

AC Milan on June 12 followed

by Napoli vs. Inter Milan a daylater. Juventus and Milan drew1-1 in the first leg while Napolibeat Inter 1-0. The final isscheduled for June 17.

Serie A is scheduled toresume June 20, having beingsuspended since March 9.

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