Historic Gandhi statue unveiled at Britain's Parliament Square

March 14, 2015

London, Mar 14: A historic bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi was unveiled today at the Parliament Square here, standing adjacent to iconic leaders like Britain's war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.

A galaxy of political leaders led by British Prime Minister David Cameron and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley were joined by Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan and the Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi at the ceremony to unveil the 9-foot statue of India's Father of the Nation.

Historic Gandhi

Gandhi is the first Indian and the only person never to have been in a public office to be honoured with a statue at the Square.

The statue was unveiled jointly by Cameron and Jaitley as chants of "Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram", a popular bhajan that was Gandhi's favourite, reverberated in the air.

"This statue is a magnificent tribute to one of the most towering figures in the history of world politics and by putting Mahatma Gandhi in this famous Square we are giving him an eternal home in our country," said Cameron.

Quoting some of Gandhi's famous words, Cameron highlighted how his teachings remain as potent today.

"This statue celebrates the incredibly special friendship between the world's oldest democracy and its largest, as well as the universal power of Gandhi's message," Cameron said.

"Our ties with India have remained close throughout history and continue to go from strength to strength –- through mutual respect as equals, cooperation and trade, and of course through the one-and-a-half million Indians who do so much to make Britain the country it is today, bringing our two countries closer, to the benefit of both," he said.

Jaitley, invited to the UK especially for the unveiling, said the statue was a tribute to the British sense of civility that they now choose to honour someone who was conventionally regarded as their adversary.

"It is a great tribute to both British liberalism and British democracy that they have now chosen Gandhi to share what is the most prominent public space in this country. It is a great day when two adversaries and contrarian viewpoints converge to appreciate each other," Jaitley said.

"The statue will help ensure that the legacy of Gandhi lives on for future generations. It also marks an important, historic moment celebrating the strong bond between our two nations. India and the UK share the same values and we are a partnership of equals. This lasting friendship is just one of many legacies left by Gandhi, which I am keen that we work hard to strengthen further," he said.

His words were echoed by UK Treasury minister and Indian Diaspora Champion Priti Patel, who said: "Gandhiji was a man who became a great agitator of the British government back then. We have now got him coming to Parliament Square in front of the mother of all Parliaments. It is incredibly symbolic."

The sculptor, Philip Jackson, described his creation as an important symbol in the global fight against terror.

"We live in an age where terrorism and acts of random violence are used in an attempt to effect change. Gandhi's sculpture reminds us all that great change can be achieved peacefully and without violence," said the well-known British figurative artist.

Mahatma Gandhi's statue now stands exactly opposite Britain's Houses of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster with Churchill for company, an irony given the British ex-premier's dismissive thoughts of someone he described as a "half naked fakir".

It depicts the leader of the Indian national movement wrapped up in a shawl to shield himself from the London cold during his last visit to the British capital in 1931.

NRI economist and founder of the Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust, Lord Meghnad Desai, described the unveiling as "great occasion for India, UK and the world."

"Gandhi belongs to the whole world but has now found a home in the centre of London, a city which he loved. Let everyone come from everywhere and see for themselves Gandhi in Parliament Square in London," he told PTI.

Lady Kishwar Desai, a Trustee behind the 1-million pound global fund-raising efforts for the statue, said, "To have a permanent memory of Mahatma Gandhi in front of the British Parliament is something every Indian and British-Asian would have wished for."

The move to install Gandhi's statue was announced during an official UK ministerial visit last year and donors have included leading Indian-origin businessmen like steel tycoon Lakshmi N Mittal, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy and his family and Bajaj Auto chief Rahul Bajaj.

The sculpture is aimed as a focal point for commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's return to India from South Africa to start India's struggle for freedom, as well as the passing of 70 years since his death in 2018, and the 150th anniversary of his birth in 2019.

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News Network
June 30,2020

Beijing, June 30: China said on Tuesday it was concerned about India’s decision to ban Chinese mobile apps such as Bytedance’s TikTok and Tencent’s WeChat and was making checks to verify the situation.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters during a daily briefing that (the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government of) India has a responsibility to uphold the rights of Chinese businesses.

India on Monday banned 59, mostly Chinese, mobile apps in its strongest move yet targeting China in the online space since a border crisis erupted between the two countries this month.

The apps are “prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, the defence of India, the security of state and public order", the ministry of information technology said in a statement, which came two weeks after 20 Indian Army personnel were killed in a violent clash on the India-China border in Ladakh.

The companies have been invited to offer clarifications before a government panel, which will decide whether the ban can be removed or will stay.

The move also came ahead of military and diplomatic talks between India and China scheduled this week.

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News Network
March 12,2020

Beijing, Mar 12: The number of fresh infections at the epicentre of China's coronavirus epidemic dropped to a new low on Thursday but the country imported more cases from abroad.

Another 11 people died, the lowest daily increase since late January, bringing the toll in China to 3,169 deaths, according to the National Health Commission.

There were only eight new cases in Wuhan, the city where the virus first emerged in December before growing into a national crisis and a pandemic.

It is the first time that new cases in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, have fallen to single-digits since figures started to be reported in January.

With cases falling dramatically in recent weeks, authorities this week began to loosen some restrictions on Hubei's 56 million people, who have been under quarantine since late January.

Healthy people living in low-risk areas of the province can now travel within Hubei. While Wuhan is not included, some of the city's companies were told they could resume work.

Only one other non-imported case was recorded elsewhere in the country.

But as global hotspots emerge elsewhere, China fears that cases arriving from abroad could undermine its progress.

On Thursday there were six more imported cases reported, bringing the total of infections from overseas to 85, health officials said.

Beijing has ordered a 14-day quarantine for everyone arriving in the city from any country.

Travellers flying into Beijing Capital International Airport from high-risk countries are now handled separately from other passengers.

A total of 80,793 people have now been infected in China.

President Xi Jinping said this week during his first visit to Wuhan since the crisis erupted that the spread of the disease has been "basically curbed" in China.

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Agencies
March 15,2020

Houston, Mar 15: Researchers, studying the novel coronavirus, have found that the time between cases in a chain of transmission is less than a week, and over 10 per cent of patients are infected by someone who has the virus, but does not show symptoms yet, a finding that may help public health officials contain the pandemic.

The study, published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, estimated what's called the serial interval of the coronavirus by measuring the time it takes for symptoms to appear in two people with the virus -- the person who infects another, and the infected second person.

According to the researchers, including those from the University of Texas at Austin, the average serial interval for the novel coronavirus in China was approximately four days.

They said the speed of an epidemic depends on two things -- how many people each case infects, and how long it takes cases to spread.

The first quantity, the scientists said, is called the reproduction number, and the second is the serial interval.

Due to the short serial interval of the disease caused by the coronavirus -- COVID-19 -- they said, emerging outbreaks will grow quickly, and could be difficult to stop.

“Ebola, with a serial interval of several weeks, is much easier to contain than influenza, with a serial interval of only a few days,” said Lauren Ancel Meyers, study co-author from UT Austin.

Meyers explained that public health responders to Ebola outbreaks have much more time to identify and isolate cases before they infect others.

“The data suggest that this coronavirus may spread like the flu. That means we need to move quickly and aggressively to curb the emerging threat,” Meyers added.

In the study, the scientists examined more than 450 infection case reports from 93 cities in China, and found the strongest evidence yet that people without symptoms must be transmitting the virus -- known as pre-symptomatic transmission.

More than one in ten infections were from people who had the virus but did not yet feel sick, the scientists said.

While researchers across the globe had some uncertainty until now about asymptomatic transmission with the coronavirus, the new evidence could provide guidance to public health officials on how to contain the spread of the disease.

“This provides evidence that extensive control measures including isolation, quarantine, school closures, travel restrictions and cancellation of mass gatherings may be warranted,” Meyers said.

The researchers cautioned that asymptomatic transmission makes containment more difficult.

With hundreds of new cases emerging around the world every day, the scientists said, the data may offer a different picture over time.

They said infection case reports are based on people's memories of where they went and whom they had contact with, and if health officials move quickly to isolate patients, that may also skew the data.

“Our findings are corroborated by instances of silent transmission and rising case counts in hundreds of cities worldwide. This tells us that COVID-19 outbreaks can be elusive and require extreme measures,” Meyers said.

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