As bypoll looms disqualified MLAs get huge grants from BSY govt

Bengaluru, Apr 15: Police on Wednesday conducted surprise raids at nearly 120 shops in Bengaluru following complaints of black marketing and sale of foodgrains above the MRP rate.

Sandip Patil, Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime, Bengaluru in a tweet said that action has been initiated against these shopkeepers.

Though the government has maintained the supply chain of essential items, few shopkeepers have used the lockdown opportunity to charge higher prices for essential items.

The current physical distancing guidelines provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may not be adequate to curb the coronavirus spread, according to a research which says the gas cloud from a cough or sneeze may help virus particles travel up to 8 metres. The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, noted that the the current guidelines issued by the WHO and CDC are based on outdated models from the 1930s of how gas clouds from a cough, sneeze, or exhalation spread.

Study author, MIT associate professor Lydia Bourouiba, warned that droplets of all sizes can travel 23 to 27 feet, or 7-8 metres, carrying the pathogen.

According to Bourouiba, the current guidelines are based on "arbitrary" assumptions of droplet size, "overly simplified", and "may limit the effectiveness of the proposed interventions" against the deadly pandemic.

 She explained that the old guidelines assume droplets to be one of two categories, small or large, taking short-range semi-ballistic trajectories when a person exhales, coughs, or sneezes.

However based on more recent discoveries, the MIT scientist said, sneezes and coughs are made of a puff cloud that carries ambient air, transporting within it clusters of droplets of a wide range of sizes.

Bourouiba warned that this puff cloud, with ambient air entrapped in it, can offer the droplets moisture and warmth that can prevent it from evaporation in the outer environment.

"The locally moist and warm atmosphere within the turbulent gas cloud allows the contained droplets to evade evaporation for much longer than occurs with isolated droplets," she said.

"Under these conditions, the lifetime of a droplet could be considerably extended by a factor of up to 1000, from a fraction of a second to minutes," the researcher explained in the study.

The MIT scientist, who has researched the dynamics of coughs and sneezes for years, added that these droplets settle along the trajectory of a cough or sneeze contaminating surfaces, with their residues staying suspended in the air for hours.

"Even when maximum containment policies were enforced, the rapid international spread of COVID-19 suggests that using arbitrary droplet size cutoffs may not accurately reflect what actually occurs with respiratory emissions, possibly contributing to the ineffectiveness of some procedures used to limit the spread of respiratory disease," Bourouiba wrote in the study

Jan 28: Hindu temple processions with an elephant adorned in ornaments carrying the idol, with percussionists and devotees walking side by side, are no new sight in Kerala. However, a similar procession in Kerala's cultural capital, Thrissur, turned heads. Hundreds of Muslims were seen holding hands and clearing traffic to help the procession move smoothly.

Muslims made way for the passage of a Hindu temple procession during their protest against Citizenship Amendment Act(ACT) in Thrissur on Saturday, January 25.

Various Muslim organisations had organised a mass protest in the Swaraj ground in the town. On the same day, the local Bhaktapriyam temple's procession was also taking place. Stuck in a dilemma, the temple authorities approached the police and the Muslim organisations to find a solution. The Muslim organisations then promised to help proceed the temple procession without any obstacles.

Nearly a thousand people who had turned up for the protest volunteered to clear traffic and control the crowd so that the temple procession could smoothly pass through the town.

A video of the procession was shared on Facebook by the Thrissur City Police on Saturday, which showed Muslims holding hands on either side of the procession to make way.

"Humanity is bigger than religion. That's the lesson the residents of Thrissur are giving to the country. Thrissur is truly the cultural capital of Kerala," read the caption of the post in Malayalam. The video soon went viral and was viewed by over 36k views.