CM Kejriwal seeks 10 days to resolve problems of people in Delhi

New Delhi, May 14: With a spike of 3,722 new cases in the last 24 hours, the COVID-19 count in India reached 78,003 on Thursday morning, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

As per the latest update by the Ministry, there are 49,219 active cases in the country while 26,235 patients have been cured and discharged, and one migrated, so far.

With 134 new deaths being reported due to the disease since yesterday, the toll due to the disease reached 2,549.

With 25,922 confirmed cases, Maharashtra is the worst affected by the infection in the country so far.

Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, with 9,267 and 9,227, cases respectively are the next worst affected by the disease.

The national capital, Delhi, is just a couple of cases behind the 8 thousand mark as per the update on Thursday morning.

Mumbai, Jul 2: The Shiv Sena on Thursday termed the ban on 59 Chinese apps by the Indian government as a "digital strike" and asked if these apps were a threat to the national security, how did they operate for so many years.

An editorial in Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' sought to know when did the Centre realise these apps were a threat to the national security.

By banning the Chinese apps, Prime Minister Narendra Modi protected the interests of Indian internet users and his courage has be lauded, the Marathi publication said.

India on Monday banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including TikTok, UC Browser, SHAREit and WeChat, saying they were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country.

"If these apps were a threat to national security, how is it that these apps were functioning without any hurdles for so many years. If the opposition says the government neglected national security,then what will the Centre's stand be?" the Shiv Sena asked.

It said questions should be raised on all the previous governments for "allowing national data to go out of the country".

China has expressed displeasure over the Indian government's decision, the Marathi daily said, adding that Chinese soldiers are "still not ready to leave the Galwan Valley (in Ladakh)".

The Sena said it took the sacrifices of 20 soldiers for the government to realise Indian data was being illegally taken out of the country.

"The government took revenge by a digital strike," it stated.

There have been complaints earlier that users' data on Chinese apps was illegally sent out of the country, and apps like TikTok were "promoting vulgarity", it said.

"Many TikTok stars had reportedly joined the BJP," the Sena claimed. "What will happen to them?" it asked.

There is a need to break China economically, but that will not happen by banning its apps. The issue is about trade and investment between the two countries, it said.

"The largest Chinese investment is in Gujarat.

Chinese company Huawei has got the contract to set up 5G network in India. This company having keys to India's digital economy is akin to the Chinese Communist Party owning the Indian economy in future," it said.

Jan 13: For the first time in years, the government of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is playing defense. Protests have sprung up across the country against an amendment to India’s laws — which came into effect on Friday — that makes it easier for members of some religions to become citizens of India. The government claims this is simply an attempt to protect religious minorities in the Muslim-majority countries that border India; but protesters see it as the first step toward a formal repudiation of India’s constitutionally guaranteed secularism — and one that must be resisted.

Modi was re-elected prime minister last year with an enhanced majority; his hold over the country’s politics is absolute. The formal opposition is weak, discredited and disorganized. Yet, somehow, the anti-Citizenship Act protests have taken hold. No political party is behind them; they are generally arranged by student unions, neighborhood associations and the like.

Yet this aspect of their character is precisely what will worry Modi and his right-hand man, Home Minister Amit Shah. They know how to mock and delegitimize opposition parties with ruthless efficiency. Yet creating a narrative that paints large, flag-waving crowds as traitors is not quite that easy.

For that is how these protests look: large groups of young people, many carrying witty signs and the national flag. They meet and read the preamble to India’s Constitution, into which the promise of secularism was written in the 1970’s.

They carry photographs of the Constitution’s drafter, the Columbia University-trained economist and lawyer B. R. Ambedkar. These are not the mobs the government wanted. They hoped for angry Muslims rampaging through the streets of India’s cities, whom they could point to and say: “See? We must protect you from them.” But, in spite of sometimes brutal repression, the protests have largely been nonviolent.

One, in Shaheen Bagh in a Muslim-dominated sector of New Delhi, began simply as a set of local women in a square, armed with hot tea and blankets against the chill Delhi winter. It has now become the focal point of a very different sort of resistance than what the government expected. Nothing could cure the delusions of India’s Hindu middle class, trained to see India’s Muslims as dangerous threats, as effectively as a group of otherwise clearly apolitical women sipping sweet tea and sharing their fears and food with anyone who will listen.

Modi was re-elected less than a year ago; what could have changed in India since then? Not much, I suspect, in most places that voted for him and his party — particularly the vast rural hinterland of northern India. But urban India was also possibly never quite as content as electoral results suggested. India’s growth dipped below 5% in recent quarters; demand has crashed, and uncertainty about the future is widespread. Worse, the government’s response to the protests was clearly ill-judged. University campuses were attacked, in one case by the police and later by masked men almost certainly connected to the ruling party.

Protesters were harassed and detained with little cause. The courts seemed uninterested. And, slowly, anger began to grow on social media — not just on Twitter, but also on Instagram, previously the preserve of pretty bowls of salad. Instagram is the one social medium over which Modi’s party does not have a stranglehold; and it is where these protests, with their photogenic signs and flags, have found a natural home. As a result, people across urban India who would never previously have gone to a demonstration or a political rally have been slowly politicized.

India is, in fact, becoming more like a normal democracy. “Normal,” that is, for the 2020’s. Liberal democracies across the world are politically divided, often between more liberal urban centers and coasts, and angrier, “left-behind” hinterlands. Modi’s political secret was that he was that rare populist who could unite both the hopeful cities and the resentful countryside. Yet this once magic formula seems to have become ineffective. Five of India’s six largest cities are not ruled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in any case — the financial hub of Mumbai changed hands recently. The BJP has set its sights on winning state elections in Delhi in a few weeks. Which way the capital’s voters will go is uncertain. But that itself is revealing — last year, Modi swept all seven parliamentary seats in Delhi.

In the end, the Citizenship Amendment Act is now law, the BJP might manage to win Delhi, and the protests might die down as the days get unmanageably hot and state repression increases. But urban India has put Modi on notice. His days of being India’s unifier are over: From now on, like all the other populists, he will have to keep one eye on the streets of his country’s cities.