Delhi HC asks Arnab, Republic TV to respect Tharoor's silence

New Delhi, Jan 12: In a shocking revelation, one unemployed person committed suicide every hour during 2018 when a total of 1,34,516 suicides, including 92,114 male and 42,391 female, were reported in the country, NCRB's "Suicide in India 2018" says.

The latest data, issued by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which comes under Ministry of Home Affairs, last week reveals that a total of 12,936 unemployed persons committed suicide in 2018, which accounted for 9.6 per cent of the total suicides, and were of aged below 18 years to above 60 years.

Those below 18 years include 31 males and nine females while those between 18 and 30 years comprise 1,240 male and 180 female. A total of 868 male and 95 female were aged between 30 and 45 years. A number of 237 males and 21 females were aged between 45 and 60 years while 2,431 males and 310 females were above 60 years.

Of the total suicides by unemployed persons, males are 10,687 while the females are 2,249.

The highest number of suicides - 12.3 per cent - committed by unemployed persons were in Kerala (1,585 out of 12,936 suicides), 12.2 per cent in Tamil Nadu (1,579), 9.7 per cent in Maharashtra (1,260 suicides), 8.5 per cent in Karnataka (1,094 suicides) and 7 per cent in Uttar Pradesh (902 suicides).

"Each suicide is a personal tragedy that prematurely takes the life of an individual and has a continuing ripple effect, dramatically affecting the lives of families, friends and communities. Every year, more than 1 lakh people commit suicide in our country. There are various causes of suicides like professional/career problems, sense of isolation, abuse, violence, family problems, mental disorders, addiction to alcohol, financial loss, chronic pain etc," says the NCRB adding it collects data on suicides from police recorded suicide cases.

As per the NCRB, rate of suicides has been calculated using projected population for the non-census years whereas for 2011, the population of the Population Census 2011 was used.

The NCRB data says that a total of 1,34,516 suicides were reported in the country during 2018 showing an increase of 3.6 per cent in comparison to 2017 and the rate of suicides has increased by 0.3 during 2018 over 2017.

Government servants accounted for 1.3 per cent (1,707 out of 1,34,516) of the total suicide victims as compared to 6.1 per cent (8,246 out of 1,34,516) of total victims from Private Sector Enterprises.

Employees from Public Sector Undertakings formed 1.5 per cent (2,022 out of 1,34,516) of the total suicide victims, whereas students and unemployed victims accounted for 7.6 per (10,159 victims) of total suicides. Self-employed category accounted for 9.8 per cent of total suicide victims (13,149 out of 1,34,516).

A total of 10,349 persons involved in farming sector (consisting of 5,763 farmers and cultivators and 4,586 agricultural labourers) have committed suicide during 2018, accounting for 7.7 per cent of total suicides victims (1,34,516) in the country.

A total of 11 transgenders have committed suicide in which three were daily wage earners, one each were 'professionals and salaried persons' and 'unemployed persons' while six falls under 'Other Persons'.

Newsroom, Apr 22: Dozens of Tablighi Jamaat members from across the country who have been successfully recovered and have now tested negative for the novel coronavirus have come forward and donate their plasma for the treatment of Covid-19 patients.

The Tablighis from Tamil Nadu were the first to take this decision. According to them, apart from helping the critically ill patients to recover from COVID-19, was to counter the ‘baseless accusations’ that Tablighis were responsible for the spread of the virus following the religious congregation of the sect held at Delhi’s Nizamuddin area last month.

Mohammad Abbas, a thirty-eight year old businessman from Tiruppur was on Sunday discharged from Coimbatore’s ESI hospital. “As soon as I got discharged, I met the district administration officials and the dean of the hospital and told them that they may contact me anytime if they needed me to donate my plasma,” Abbas was quoted as saying by an English daily.

“It has only been one day since I was discharged but I’ve already spoken to others (from the Jamaat) who have recovered and they were all ready to donate,” he added. 

Leader's call

Maulana Saad Kandhalvi, a prominent leader of Tablighi Jamaat, who has been booked by the Delhi Police for holding a religious congregation, too has appealed to coronavirus survivors to donate blood plasma for infected people.

In a letter issued on Tuesday, Saad said most of the members who were quarantined did not have any infection and they tested negative for COVID-19.

"Even from amongst the ones who tested positive for the disease, a majority of them have now undergone treatment and are now cured while I and a few others are still under quarantine.

"It is required that such people who are now cured of this disease should donate blood plasma to others who are still fighting the disease and are under treatment," he said.

He also has urged the followers of the organisation to pray at home in the month of Ramadan instead of going to mosques. 

Plasma therapy

Convalescent Plasma Therapy is an experimental procedure for COVID-19 patients.

In this therapy, the antibodies of a person who has recovered from the virus are taken and transfused into a sick person (having the virus) to help boost the person’s immune system.

The recovered COVID-19 patient’s blood develops antibodies to battle against COVID-19.

Once the blood of the first patient is infused to the second patient, those antibodies will start fighting against the coronavirus in the second person.

The process for donating plasma is similar to donating blood and takes about an hour.

Several countries around the world including the United Kingdom and the United States have also started plasma therapy trials.

In India, several states like Kerala, Gujarat and Punjab have already started using Plasma Therapy for the corona-infected patients.

Bengaluru, Mar 25: The COVID-19 count in Karnataka went up by 10 on Wednesday, reaching 51. The 10 new positives included two girls aged seven and nine who contracted the infection from their father.

The 34-year-old man had returned from Amsterdam on March 19 and tested positive as the 17th confirmed case in Karnataka.

Though his family were kept in isolation and under quarantine in their house, the children developed a cold. They were confirmed for COVID-19 infection while their mother is still negative.

The government remained tightlipped over whether or not a 70-year-old woman from Gouribidanuru who was put under house quarantine and died on Wednesday morning, tested positive for COVID-19. Government officials would neither confirm nor deny anything on the results of tests on the woman.

This evening’s bulletin issued by the Karnataka health department continued to indicate the strong correlation of coronavirus infection and foreign travel.

Among the positive cases identified today were

A 63-year-old Bengaluru man and his 59-year-old wife, with a history of travel to Brazil and Argentina.
Two 26-year-old men with a history of travel to Spain and arrived back in Bengaluru via Dubai.
Two others, a 63-year-old woman and her 69-year-old husband, had a history of travel to Athens and London.
A 34-year-old man, a resident of Udupi, who returned from Dubai
A 37-year old woman, a resident of Chitradurga, with a history of travel to Guyana and arrived back in Bengaluru via Delhi
Speaking to the media, medical education minister K Sudhakar said health officials were apprehensive the positives may go up tonight.

Of the corona positive cases detected in Karnataka so far, three have been discharged after quarantine, and 47 patients are in isolation at designated hospitals in a stable condition. There has been one fatality.

As per a recommendation by the high-level health committee, the government has decided to convert the Bowring Hospital into a coronavirus treatment hospital facility along with the Rajiv Gandhi Hospital for Chest Diseases and Victoria Hospital. 

“The number of positive cases are growing at an alarming rate and the government needs more treatment facilities. The government is for burning of COVID-19 death cases. However, due to some religious practices, it has been decided they would be buried in 8 ft deep pits,'' Dr Sudhakar said.