Editor, TV channel head arrested over defermatory content against Adityanath

Beijing, Feb 24: The lockdown of Guo Jing's neighbourhood in Wuhan -- the city at the heart of China's new coronavirus epidemic -- came suddenly and without warning.

Unable to go out, the 29-year-old is now sealed inside her compound where she has to depend on online group-buying services to get food.

"Living for at least another month isn't an issue," Guo told news agency, explaining that she had her own stash of pickled vegetables and salted eggs.

But what scares her most is the lack of control -- first, the entire city was sealed off, and then residents were limited to exiting their compound once every three days.

Now even that has been taken away.

Guo is among some 11 million residents in Wuhan, a city in central Hubei province that has been under effective quarantine since January 23 as Chinese authorities race to contain the epidemic.

Since then, its people have faced a number of tightening controls over daily life as the death toll from the virus swelled to over 2,500 in China alone.

But the new rules this month barring residents from leaving their neighbourhoods are the most restrictive yet -- and for some, threaten their livelihoods.

"I still don't know where to buy things once we've finished eating what we have at home," said Pan Hongsheng, who lives with his wife and two children.

Some neighbourhoods have organised group-buying services, where supermarkets deliver orders in bulk.

But in Pan's community, "no one cares".

"The three-year-old doesn't even have any milk powder left," Pan told news agency, adding that he has been unable to send medicine to his in-laws -- both in their eighties -- as they live in a different area.

"I feel like a refugee."

The "closed management of neighbourhoods is bound to bring some inconvenience to the lives of the people", Qian Yuankun, vice secretary of Hubei's Communist Party committee, said at a press briefing last week.

Authorities on Monday allowed healthy non-residents of the city to leave if they never had contact with patients, but restrictions remained on those who live in Wuhan.

Demand for group-buying food delivery services has rocketed with the new restrictions, with supermarkets and neighbourhood committees scrambling to fill orders.

Most group-buying services operate through Chinese messaging app WeChat, which has ad-hoc chat groups for meat, vegetables, milk -- even "hot dry noodles", a famous Wuhan dish.

More sophisticated shops and compounds have their own mini-app inside WeChat, where residents can choose packages priced by weight before orders are sent in bulk to grocery stores.

In Guo's neighbourhood, for instance, a 6.5-kilogramme (14.3-pound) set of five vegetables, including potatoes and baby cabbage, costs 50 yuan ($7.11).

"You have no way to choose what you like to eat," Guo said. "You cannot have personal preferences anymore."

The group-buying model is also more difficult for smaller communities to adopt, as supermarkets have minimum order requirements for delivery.

"To be honest, there's nothing we can do," said Yang Nan, manager of Lao Cun Zhang supermarket, which requires a minimum of 30 orders.

"We only have four cars," she said, explaining that the store did not have the staff to handle smaller orders.

Another supermarket told AFP it capped its daily delivery load to 1,000 orders per day.

"Hiring staff is difficult," said Wang Xiuwen, who works at the store's logistics division, adding that they are wary about hiring too many outsiders for fear of infection.

Closing off communities has split the city into silos, with different neighbourhoods rolling out controls of varying intensity.

In some compounds, residents have easier access to food -- albeit a smaller selection than normal -- and one woman said her family pays delivery drivers to run grocery errands.

Her compound has not been sealed off either, the 24-year-old told AFP under condition of anonymity, though they are limited to one person leaving at a time.

Some districts have implemented their own rules, such as prohibiting supermarkets from selling to individuals, forcing neighbourhoods to buy in bulk or not at all.

"In the neighbourhood where I live, the reality is really terrible," said David Dai, who is based on the outskirts of Wuhan.

Though his apartment complex has organised group-buying, Dai said residents were unhappy with price and quality.

"A lot of tomatoes, a lot of onions -- they were already rotten," he told , estimating over a third of the food had to be thrown away.

His family must "totally depend" on themselves, added the 49-year-old, who has resorted to saving and drying turnip skins to add nutrients to future meals.

The uncertainty of not knowing when the controls will be lifted is also frustrating, said Ma Chen, a man in his 30s who lives alone.

"I have no way of knowing how much (food) I should buy."

New Delhi, Jan 12: As many as 109 children were sexually abused every day in India in 2018, according to the data by the National Crime Records Bureau, which showed a 22 per cent jump in such cases from the previous year.

According to the recently released NCRB data, 32,608 cases were reported in 2017 while 39,827 cases were reported in 2018 under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO).

POCSO Act, 2012 is a comprehensive law to provide for the protection of children from offences of sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography. It requires special treatment of cases relating to child sexual abuse such as setting-up of special courts, special prosecutors, and support persons for child victims.

As many as 21,605 child rapes were recorded in 2018 which included 21,401 rapes of girls and 204 of boys, the data showed.

The highest number of child rapes were recorded in Maharashtra at 2,832 followed by Uttar Pradesh at 2023 and Tamil Nadu at 1457, the data showed.

Overall crimes against children has increased steeply over six times in the decade over 2008-2018, from 22,500 cases recorded in 2008 to 1,41,764 cases in 2018, according to the NCRB data from 2008 and 2018.

In 2017, 1,29,032 cases of crime against children were recorded.

Priti Mahara, Director of Policy Research and Advocacy at CRY – Child Rights and You (CRY) said, that while on the one hand, the increasing numbers of crimes against children are extremely alarming, it also suggests an increasing trend in reporting which is a positive sign as it reflects people's faith in the system.

"It also provides a direction in which government interventions must be made and evidence needs to be created. While some major efforts have been taken to ensure child protection, a lot more is needed to see expected results on the ground," Mahara said.

In percentage terms, major crime against children during 2018 were kidnapping and abduction which accounted for 44.2 per cent followed by cases under POCSO, which accounted for 34.7 per cent, the data showed.

A total of 67,134 children (19,784 male,47,191 female and 159 transgender) were reported missing in 2018. During the year 2018, a total of 71,176 children (22,239 male, 48,787 female and 150 transgender) were traced, the NCRB data said.

As many as 781 cases of use of child for pornography or storing child pornography material was also recorded in 2018, more than double that of  2017 when 331 such cases were recorded, the data showed.

The state-wise segregation of crimes against children reveals Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi and Bihar accounted for 51 per cent of all crimes in the country, the data said.

While Uttar Pradesh tops the list with 19,936 recorded crimes against children (14 per cent of total crimes), Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are the close second and third with 18,992 and 18,892 crimes registered respectively.

The report also showed that cases of sexual harassment in shelter homes against women and children reportedly increased by 30 per cent, from 544 cases recorded in 2017 to 707 cases in 2018.

Mahara suggested that financial investments must be adequately increased with a focus on prevention of crimes against children and the identification of vulnerable children and families.

"Strengthening community-level child protection system is also a key to prevention. While there is growing evidence of the precarious lives that children in India are leading, it is essential that this evidence is used to effectively inform policy and programme initiatives," she said.

As many as 501 incidences were also recorded under The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, a 26 per cent jump from 2017 when 395 cases were reported under the Act.

New Delhi, Feb 8: A 26-year-old woman sub-inspector (SI) of the Delhi Police was shot dead near Rohini East Metro station on Friday night, officials said.

The SI, Preeti Ahlawat, was posted in Patparganj Industrial Area Police Station, police said.

A call about the incident was received around 9.30 pm, they said, adding she received gunshot wounds on her head.

"We have identified the suspects and CCTV footage of the area has been collected," said SD Mishra, Additional Commissioner of Police (Rohini).

Three empty cartridges were found from the spot, the officer said, adding a case has been registered and a probe is on.

Personal enmity is suspected to be the reason behind the killing, the officer said.

Ahlawat joined the Delhi Police in 2018.