New Delhi, Apr 20,2021: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday announced a six-day lockdown in Delhi, starting from 2200 hrs tonight till 0500 hrs of April 26 in the wake of an unstoppable surge in the coronavirus cases.
Delhi has been recording nearly 25,000 cases of Covid-19 for the past three to four days, leading to a drastic increase in active cases, scarcity of beds, medical oxygen, and anti-viral drugs in hospitals and other places.
“It is felt that in order to contain the fast spread of the virus, curfew needs to be imposed in the territory of NCT of Delhi, except for essential services, as an emergency measure, in order to break the chain of COVID-19 transmission,” an order released by the government read.
As per the order, during the six-day-long lockdown period, people working in emergency and essential services will be allowed to move on the production of a valid I-card, pregnant women, patients, and attendants can visit hospitals, vaccination centers will remain open and people will be allowed to board flights, trains and buses.
Moreover, media persons are exempted and so are fruits, vegetables vendors, grocery stores, banks, ATMs, petrol pumps, chemist shops, manufacturing units of essentials, cold storages and restaurants offering takeaways or home delivery.
Only 50 people will be allowed to attend a marriage while 20 in the funeral, read the order. Also, all other gatherings are prohibited while all religious places will remain closed.
Addressing a digital press conference, Mr Kejriwal said, “The number of beds in the Delhi hospitals is falling short…..If strict measures are not taken now, the health system in Delhi can collapse.”
As per the Delhi government website, only 57 ICU Covid beds and 3,347 non-ICU beds were available across hospitals at 1830 hrs.
The Chief Minister said in this period of lockdown, the Delhi government would arrange for a large number of beds and utilise this time to arrange for oxygen and medicines.
Recalling last year’s havoc when hundreds of migrants left the city for hinterland via foot, bicycle or any possible means during the lockdown fearing poverty and hunger, Mr Kejriwal urged the migrants, labourers and others to remain calm as it is only a six-day lockdown and full arrangements are in place for their needs.
New Delhi , April 1,2021: India is expected to have normal monsoon rainfall this year, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday.
“Southwest monsoon seasonal (June to September) rainfall over the country as a whole is likely to be normal (96-104%),” the IMD said in its first stage Long Range Forecast (LRF) for monsoons.
Addressing a press conference through video link, Secretary of Ministry of Earth Sciences M Rajeevan released the IMD’s Long Range Forecast for the 2021 Southwest Monsoon Season Rainfall.
Director General of IMD M Mohapatra was also present.
Rajeevan said that quantitatively the monsoon seasonal (June to September) rainfall is likely to be 98 of the Long Period Average (LPA) with a model error of 5 per cent.
He pointed out that neutral El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions are prevailing over the Pacific Ocean and neutral Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) conditions are prevailing over the Indian Ocean.
Some climate model forecasts indicate these conditions are likely to persist during the ensuing monsoon season.
He said that as sea surface temperature (SST) conditions over the Pacific and Indian Oceans are known to have strong influence on Indian monsoon, IMD is carefully monitoring the evolution of sea surface conditions over the Pacific and the Indian oceans.
Rajeevan said that La Nina conditions are likely to prevail only till May. “We will transition to ENSO (El Nino and Southern Oscillation) neutral conditions during monsoon. There is very little chance of El Nino conditions developing during monsoon months. There is a very small probability of Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) negative condition developing during monsoon. So these conditions are likely to lead to a normal monsoon this year,” he said.
Kolkata, Apr 17,2021: Voting for the fifth phase of the eight-phase assembly election in West Bengal began onSaturday morning in 45 of the state’s 294 constituencies amid elaborate security arrangements.
Polling for the fifth phase will be held across six districts and 45 assembly seats. The districts include North Pargana Part I, Darjeeling, Nadia Part I, Kalimpong, East Bardhaman Part I and Jalpaiguri.
In all, 319 candidates including 39 women will be vying for the 45 Assembly seats spread over six districts during the fifth phase. Over 1.12 crore voters including 55.80 lakh women and 234 Third Gender persons will decide the fate of these candidates.
The EC has made elaborate security arrangements with the deployment of central and state forces to ensure a free, fair and peaceful poll.
As the movement of polling personnel began early Friday for their respective voting centers, the deployment of a record 1,071 companies of central armed forces was also in place for the 5th phase polling
The ECI, however, would use 853 companies of central armed forces for the 5th phase and rest would be kept in reserve.
69 companies have been deployed at Barasat, 61 in Barrackpore, 107 for Basirhat, 46 for Bidhannagar, 68 for Darjeeling, 21 for Kalimpong, 122 for Jalpaiguri,11 for Krishnagar, 155 for East Bardhaman, 140 for Ranaghat and 53 for Siliguri.
Altogether 15,789 polling booths have been set up and each booth will be manned by an ASI and four armed constables.
April 15,2021: A Turkish delegation will visit Egypt next month as part of Ankara’s efforts to mend ties with Cairo after the two countries snapped diplomatic relations in 2013, the foreign minister said on Thursday.
“Egypt invited a delegation from Turkey. The delegation will go in early May,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the private NTV broadcaster.
“We will discuss openly how to normalise relations.”
Cavusoglu on Thursday said the first delegation talks would be at the level of deputy foreign ministers, before a meeting between the ministers.
“I hope we will all together further improve relations,” he said.
Thaw in relations
Ankara and Cairo froze ties after the 2013 overthrow of Egypt’s first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi, who forged close ties with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
That year, both countries expelled each others’ ambassadors and Cairo had then declared the Turkish envoy “persona non grata”.
But Turkish officials last month said Ankara had established the first diplomatic contacts with Cairo since 2013 as part of wider efforts to repair relations with other Middle Eastern rivals.
Cavusoglu’s announcement comes a day after he said a new period was beginning in Turkey-Egypt ties.
okyo [Japan], April 15,2021: Joining the growing ranks of popular western brands, Japanese ketchup producer Kagome has stopped importing raw materials from China’s Xinjiang province, over the issue of rights abuses against Uyghur, Nikkei Asia reports.
The leading Japanese ketchup producer stopped the import of Xinjiang-grown tomato paste used in some of its sauce products last year.
One of the Kagome representatives said that along with costs and quality, “human rights problems have become a factor in making decisions.”
The Japanese financial newspaper said that Kagome is believed to be the first major Japanese corporation to stop doing business with the region over the Uyghur issue.
This comes after several western brands, including H&M and Nike, halted sourcing materials made in the region, which has resulted in backlash from Chinese consumers.
The issue of forced labour has drawn the attention of the international community.
Recently, a group of 16 independent UN experts sent a letter to Chinese and multinational companies raising concerns about the reports of forced labour in East Turkistan. The letter was also sent to the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, Beijing has resorted to boycotting Western companies who have voiced their concerns over the use of Uyghur forced labour in their supply chains in East Turkistan.
Chennai (Tamil Nadu) , April 15,2021: Named after the giant bell that Manu Needhi Chozhalan, a just king of the Chola dynasty, hung in front of his courtroom for his citizens to make their complaints heard for redressal, Araichimani.com, a free web and mobile app, is launched for residents to crowdsource public support against specific social and civic problems in their locations and spur government officials into action.
Araichimani, developed by Balakumar. K, a Chennai-based software engineer, is a not-for-profit venture. It can be accessed via web or OS and Android-based mobile devices, without downloading the app. Residents can publish their problems in text and attach relevant photos or videos, if preferred, anonymously. They can also use online maps to pinpoint locations. Other users can browse the problems related to different cities, towns and villages, and upvote them and share the problems in their social media channels. They can also add their own comments. The problems are listed according to the votes they get with the most-voted problems pushed to the top.
The officials from government departments and NGOs and activists can log in to Araichimani to know the social and civic problems pertaining to their locations. In the future, the platform will have options to notify government departments of relevant grievances as soon as they are made.
Commenting about the product, Balakumar, said, “Though we all experience many social and civic problems related to infrastructure, education, equality, pollution, and so on in our day-to-day life, most of us feel that we neither have the time to unite people to raise our concerns nor petition the concerns to the relevant government officials. By not doing anything about the problems we experience, we are setting the stage for a dark future and an unfriendly environment for our kids and future generations.”
Araichimani.com as a digital platform aims to help people raise concerns quite effortlessly and let the system do the rest – crowdsourcing, and notifying officials. With a smartphone, anybody can initiate a topic with pictures/videos, and others who are experiencing the same problem can add their vote to the issue. As the topics get more votes, the topic will surface at the top of the list and get attention from others.
Araichimani intends to serve as an authentic, transparent and democratic platform to engage the public in highlighting social and civic problems and get the attention and actions these issues deserve. Though there are similar apps for consumers to raise their complaints, and whistle-blowers to bring a corporate issue to open, there are no such equivalent platforms for social and civic problems.
Araichimani can be technically used by citizens from anywhere in the country. But it expects users mostly from Tamil Nadu and south Indian states, to begin with. The app uses data analytics heavily. It is developed based on progressive web technologies so that users do not have to download the app on their mobile devices to use it. It is enough if they could create a shortcut to the app on their devices for one-click access.