100 more deaths in 3 days, swine flu toll jumps to 585

February 16, 2015

New Delhi, Feb 16: The death toll from swine flu this year has soared to 585 with 100 more casualties reported across the country in three days since Feb. 12, prompting the Centre to order additional stocks of medicines and diagnostic kits.swin flu deaths

While the total number of swine flu deaths had stood at 485 till February 12, the latest official data released today says 100 more people succumbed to the H1N1 virus in the three days till Feb. 15, taking the toll to 585. Altogether, 8,423 people have contracted swine flu this year in the country.

Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are the worst-affected states with their respective tolls standing at 165, 144, 76 and 58, official figures said.

On Feb. 15 alone, Rajasthan reported 12 deaths while there were eight fresh casualties each in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.

While Delhi and Tamil Nadu have reported a high incidence of swine flu cases, the death toll in the two states is relatively low due to high level of awareness and a better developed health sector.

Punjab has the highest ratio of the number of deaths to those affected by the disease. Thus, 25 of the 68 people who contracted the virus in the state this year have succumbed to swine flu.

Health ministry officials said they have sent central teams to the worst-affected states like Rajasthan and Gujarat and have developed appropriate guidelines.

"The government has already placed an order for enhancing stocks of diagnostic kits -- for testing for the H1N1 virus -- to be supplied to the lab network under Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme.

"To enhance the level of preparedness, additional stocks of the drug, Oseltamivir, and 10,000 N-95 masks are also being procured," an official statement said.

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News Network
May 7,2020

May 7: Accusing the BJP government in Karnataka of "medieval barbarism" and treating migrants as worse than "bonded labourers", CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Wednesday hit out at the state's decision to stop workers from returning to their homes in different parts of the country citing requirements of the construction sector.

The Karnataka government has withdrawn its request to the railways to run special trains to ferry migrant labourers to their home states, hours after builders met Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa to apprise him of the problems the construction sector will face in case they left.

"This is worse than treating them as bonded labour. Does the Indian constitution exist? Are there any laws in the country? This BJP state government is throwing us back to medieval barbarism. This will be stoutly resisted,” Yechury said in a tweet.

The railways is running Shramik Special trains to ferry to their home towns migrants who were stranded at their places of work during the lockdown.

So far, it has run more than 115 such trains.

The Principal Secretary in the Revenue Department N Manjunatha Prasad, who is the nodal officer for migrants, had requested the South Western Railways on Tuesday to run two train services a day for five days except Wednesday, while the state government wanted services thrice a day to Danapur in Bihar. However, later, Prasad wrote another letter within a few hours that the special trains were not required. Several migrants in the city were desperate to return home as they were out of jobs and money.

Yechury also lashed out at the central government over reports that it owed states and industry Rs 3 trillion and accused the centre of shifting the burden of fighting the pandemic to the state governments.

“While shifting the entire burden of fighting the pandemic on to the State governments, Modi government is not even paying their legitimate dues. After November 2019, Centre has not paid the GST compensation dues for the rest of the financial year, i.e., March 2020.

“Modi government has the right to loot while crores of people & States are left with nothing but the right to starve?,” he tweeted.

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Agencies
July 30,2020

New Delhi, Jul 30: Preparing for a long haul in the Eastern Ladakh sector in extreme winters, the Indian Army has an edge over the Chinese as it has deployed 35,000 troops there who have already done tenures in high altitude and cold conditions.

The Indian troops deployed there are mentally prepared for tackling the weather and terrain.
In contrast, the Chinese troops deployed along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) are not used to these conditions as they have been brought from mainland China and are not accustomed to high altitude extreme cold weather conditions.

"We are preparing to provide extreme cold weather portable cabins for around 35,000 troops that have been deployed in the Eastern Ladakh sector," government sources said.

"Our soldiers deployed there have already done a tenure or two in Siachen, Eastern Ladakh or Northeast and they are physically and mentally prepared for a longer deployment there," they said.

The Chinese soldiers deployed on the Indian front include mainly conscripts who join the PLA for a period of 2-3 years and then return to their normal lives, sources said.

Indian and Chinese troops are engaged in a standoff situation all along the LAC in Eastern Ladakh from sub-sector north with both sides having deployed around 40,000 troops against each other over there.

The two sides have disengaged at three friction points including Patrolling Point 14, PP-15 and PP-17 and PP-17A.

At PP-17 and 17A, the Chinese have now maintained a small element of close to 50 troops and the remaining elements have gone back into their permanent locations.

The sources said the Army is also not much bothered about the Chinese build-up along the LAC as it has got more than two additional divisions from outside Ladakh sector.

India Army has more troops than what the Chinese have brought there, they said.

For the winter deployment, the Army already has a sizeable stock of clothes and habitat for troops as the Indian army deploys troops at the world's highest battlefield Siachen glacier and is prepared.

For additional requirements, the force is in the process of placing orders for additional tents and shelters from indigenous as well as foreign vendors.

The time for summer stocking is on and we are going to get the additional cabins and tents by that time, the sources.

Months of June, July, and August are considered to be the best time for stocking winter rations and ammunition. The snowfall is expected to start soon in the Eastern Ladakh area where the temperature is already low.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has given financial powers of Rs 500 crore per procurement to the defence forces to address any type of shortages of weapons, ammunition, and habitat.

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News Network
March 20,2020

New Delhi, Mar 20: The four men convicted of the gang rape and murder of a Delhi woman on December 16, 2012 were hanged in the darkness of pre-dawn on Friday, ending a horrific chapter in India's long history of sexual assault that had seared the nation's soul. Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) were executed at 5.30 am for the savage assault in an empty moving bus on the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who came to be known the world over as Nirbhaya, the fearless one.

This is the first time that four men have been hanged together in Tihar Jail, South Asia's largest prison complex that houses more than 16,000 inmates. The executions were carried out after the men exhausted every possible legal avenue to escape the gallows. Their desperate attempts only postponed the inevitable by less than two months after the first date of execution was set for January 22.

They were hanged at 5.30 am, Director General of Prison Sandeep Goel said.

After raping and brutalising the woman, the men, one of whom was a juvenile at the time, dumped her on the road and left for dead on the cold winter night. Her friend who was with her was also severely beaten and thrown out along with her. She was so severely violated that her insides were spilling out when she was taken to hospital. She died in a Singapore hospital after battling for her life for a fortnight.

Six people, including the four convicts and the juvenile, were named as accused.

While Ram Singh allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case, the juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.

The road to the gallows was a long and circuitous one, going through the lower courts, the High Court, the Supreme Court and the president's office before going back to the Supreme Court that heard and rejected various curative petitions.

The death warrants were deferred by a court thrice on the grounds that the convicts had not exhausted all their legal remedies and that the mercy petition of one or the other was before the president.

On March 5, a trial court issued fresh death warrants for March 20 at 5.30 am as the final date for the execution.

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