President Kovind signs ordinance on Death Penalty for rape of children under 12

London, May 12: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that a mass vaccine for the novel coronavirus may be over a year away and, in the worst-case scenario, may in fact never be found.

In his foreword to the government’s new 50-page guidance on a step by step easing of the lockdown measures in place to control the spread of the deadly virus, the UK prime minister lays out plans for businesses to gradually start reopening with “COVID-19 Secure” measures of social distancing and for the public to use “good solid British common sense” as the economy is unlocked.

“A mass vaccine or treatment may be more than a year away,” said Johnson, highlighting the work being done in the UK by scientists at Oxford University and Imperial College London towards this mission.

“Indeed, in a worst-case scenario, we may never find a vaccine. So our plan must countenance a situation where we are in this, together, for the long haul, even while doing all we can to avoid that outcome,” he said.

Admitting that a vaccine or drug-based treatment is the only “feasible long-term solution”, he said the UK has accelerated this with “promising” vaccine development programmes and a collaboration between Oxford University and pharma major AstraZeneca was a vital step that could help rapidly advance the manufacture of a Covid-19 vaccine when it is ready.

As part of global efforts, he flagged the GBP 388 million in aid funding for research into vaccines, tests and treatment, including GBP 250m to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

“But while we hope for a breakthrough, hope is not a plan,” he said, as he unveiled his plan for starting to lift lockdown restrictions from this week in phases.

Following a televised address to the nation on Sunday night and a statement in Parliament on Monday, the guidance comes into effect in public life across England from Wednesday when people will be allowed one-to-one contact with people other than those they live with, as long as they remain outside and two metres apart.

They are allowed to play sport with a friend or family member from outside their household or socialise with them in the open air for the first time in more than six weeks since the lockdown was imposed.

People are still advised to work from home where possible but start heading into work where necessary, in sectors such as construction and manufacturing, keeping the social distancing norms in place.

Under the step by step plan, by the start of next month non-essential shops will also reopen, with some hairdressers, pubs and cinemas to follow from July. However, as part of a Covid-19 Alert System, if infection rates are seen to be rising again, restrictions would be tightened “possibly at short notice”.

Fines for breaching the new rules will also be increased to GBP 100 and will double for each repeat offence, up to a maximum of GBP 3,200.

Johnson said: "I must ask the country to be patient with a continued disruption to our normal way of life, but to be relentless in pursuing our mission to build the systems we need. The worst possible outcome would be a return to the virus being out of control – with the cost to human life, and – through the inevitable re-imposition of severe restrictions – the cost to the economy. We must stay alert, control the virus, and in doing so, save lives.

“Then, as vaccines and treatment become available, we will move to another new phase, where we will learn to live with Covid-19 for the longer term without it dominating our lives.”

The devolved administrations of Scotland and Wales are putting their own measures in place and keeping the “stay at home” message in place, rather than switch to the new “stay alert” message.

The UK government’s latest messaging has come under attack from the Opposition and other sections of society over a feared lack of clarity for the general public.

Washington, Jun 11: Observing that historically India has been a tolerant, respectful country for all religions, a top Trump administration official has said the US is "very concerned" about what is happening in India over religious freedom.

The comments by Samuel Brownback, Ambassador-At-Large for International Religious Freedom, came hours after the release of the "2019 International Religious Freedom Report" on Wednesday.

Mandated by the US Congress, the report documenting major instances of violation of religious freedom across the world was released by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department.

India has previously rejected the US religious freedom report, saying it sees no locus standi for a foreign government to pronounce on the state of its citizens' constitutionally protected rights.

"We do remain very concerned about what's taking place in India. It's historically just been a very tolerant, respectful country of religions, of all religions," Mr Brownback said during a phone call with foreign journalists on Wednesday.

The trend lines have been troubling in India because it is such a religious subcontinent and seeing a lot more communal violence, Mr Brownback said. "We're seeing a lot more difficulty. I think really they need to have a - I would hope they would have an - interfaith dialogue starting to get developed at a very high level in India, and then also deal with the specific issues that we identified as well," he said.

"It really needs a lot more effort on this topic in India, and my concern is, too, that if those efforts are not put forward, you're going to see a growth in violence and increased difficulty within the society writ large," said the top American diplomat.

Responding to a question, Mr Brownback said he hoped minority faiths are not blamed for the COVID-19 spread and that they would have access to healthcare amid the crisis.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has criticised any form of discrimination, saying the COVID-19 pandemic affects everyone equally. "COVID-19 does not see race, religion, colour, caste, creed, language or border before striking. Our response and conduct thereafter should attach primacy to unity and brotherhood," PM Modi said in a post on LinkedIn in February.

The government, while previously rejecting the US religious freedom report, had said: "India is proud of its secular credentials, its status as the largest democracy and a pluralistic society with a longstanding commitment to tolerance and inclusion".

"The Indian Constitution guarantees fundamental rights to all its citizens, including its minority communities… We see no locus standi for a foreign entity/government to pronounce on the state of our citizens' constitutionally protected rights," the Foreign Ministry said in June last year.

According to the Home Ministry, 7,484 incidents of communal violence took place between 2008 and 2017, in which more than 1,100 people were killed.

New Delhi, May 27: India’s fourth recession since Independence, first since liberalisation, and perhaps the worst to date is here, according to rating agency, Crisil.

CRISIL sees the Indian economy shrinking 5 per cent in fiscal 2021 (on-year), because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The first quarter will suffer a staggering 25 per cent contraction.

About 10 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in real terms could be permanently lost. "So going back to the growth rates seen before the pandemic is unlikely in the next three fiscals", Crisil said.

Crisil has revised its earlier forecast downwards. "Earlier, on April 28, we had slashed our prediction to 1.8 per cent growth from 3.5 per cent growth. Things have only gone downhill since", it said.

While we expect non-agricultural GDP to contract 6 per cent, agriculture could cushion the blow by growing at 2.5 per cent.

In the past 69 years, India has seen a recession only thrice as per available data in fiscals 1958, 1966 and 1980. The reason was the same each time a monsoon shock that hit agriculture, then a sizeable part of the economy.

"The recession staring at us today is different," it added. For one, agriculture could soften the blow this time by growing near its trend rate, assuming a normal monsoon. Two, the pandemic-induced lockdowns have affected most non-agriculture sectors. And three, the global disruption has upended whatever opportunities India had on the exports front.

Economic conditions have slid precipitously since the April-end forecast of 1.8 per cent GDP growth for fiscal 2021 (baseline), Crisil said.

On the lockdown extension, it said that the government has extended the lockdown four times to deal with the rising number of cases, curtailing economic activity severely (lockdown 4.0 is ending on May 31).

The first quarter of this fiscal will be the worst affected. June is unlikely to see major relaxations as the Covid-19 affliction curve is yet to flatten in India.

"Not only will the first quarter be a washout for the non-agricultural economy, services such as education, and travel and tourism among others, could continue to see a big hit in the quarters to come. Jobs and incomes will see extended losses as these sectors are large employers," Crisil said.

CRISIL also foresees economic activity in states with high Covid-19 cases to suffer prolonged disruption as restrictions could continue longer.

A rough estimate based on a sample of eight states, which contribute over half of India's GDP, shows that their 'red zones' (as per lockdown 3.0) contributed 42 per cent to the state GDP on average regardless of the share of such red zones.

On average, the orange zones contribute 46 per cent, while the green zones where activity is allowed to be close to normal contribute only 12 per cent to state GDP.

The economic costs are higher than earlier expectations, according to Crisil. The economic costs now beginning to show up in the hard numbers are far worse than initial expectations.

Industrial production for March fell by over 16%. The purchasing managers indices for the manufacturing and services sectors were at 27.4 and 5.4, respectively, in April, implying extraordinary contraction. That compares with 51.8 and 49.3, respectively, in March.

Exports contracted 60.3 per cent in April, and new telecom subscribers declined 35 per cent, while railway freight movement plunged 35 per cent on-year.

"Indeed, given one of the most stringent lockdowns in the world, April could well be the worst performing month for India this fiscal," it said.

Added to that is the economic package without enough muscle. The government recently announced a Rs 20.9 lakh crore economic relief package to support the economy. The package has some short-term measures to cushion the economy, but sets its sights majorly on reforms, most of which will have payoffs only over the medium term.

"We estimate the fiscal cost of this package at 1.2 per cent of GDP, which is lower than what we had assumed in our earlier estimate (when we foresaw a growth in GDP)," it said.

"We believe a catch-up to the pre-crisis trend level of GDP growth will not be possible in the next three fiscals despite policy support. Under the base case, we estimate a 10 per cent permanent loss to real GDP (from the decadal-trend level), assuming average growth of about 7 per cent between fiscals 2022 and 2024," Crisil said.

Interestingly, after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), a sharp growth spurt helped catch up with the trend within two years. GDP grew 8.2 per cent on average in the two fiscals following the GFC. Massive fiscal spending, monetary easing and swift global recovery played a role in a V-shaped recovery.

To catch-up would require average GDP growth to surge to 11 per cent over the next three fiscals, something that has never happened before.

The research said that successive lockdowns have a non-linear and multiplicative effect on the economy a two-month lockdown will be more than twice as debilitating as a one-month imposition, as buffers keep eroding.

Partial relaxations continue to be a hindrance to supply chains, transportation and logistics. Hence, unless the entire supply chain is unlocked, the impact of improved economic activity will be subdued.

Therefore, despite the stringency of lockdown easing a tad in the third and the fourth phases, their negative impact on GDP is expected to massively outweigh the benefits from mild fiscal support and low crude oil prices, especially in the April-June quarter. "Consequently, we expect the current quarter's GDP to shrink 25 per cent on-year," it said.

Counting lockdown 4.0, Indians have had 68 days of confinement. S&P Global estimates that one month of lockdown shaves 3 per cent off annual GDP on average across Asia-Pacific.

Since India's lockdown has been the most stringent in Asia, the impact on economic growth will be correspondingly larger.

Google's Community Mobility Reports show a sharp fall in movement of people to places of recreation, retail shops, public transport and workplace travel. While data for May shows some improvement in India, mobility trends are much below the average or baseline, and lower compared with countries such as the US, South Korea, Brazil and Indonesia.