India Faced Attacks By Invaders, Still Has Hindu Majority: Mohan Bhagwat

Washington, Jul 21: Democrat Joe Biden urged Muslim Americans on Monday to join him in the fight to defeat President Donald Trump as he addressed an online summit hosted by the advocacy organisation Emgage Action to mobilise Muslim voters ahead of the presidential election.

I want to earn your vote not just because he's not worthy of being president, the presumptive presidential nominee told participants.

I want to work in partnership with you, make sure your voices are included in the decision-making process as we work to rebuild our nation.

Biden also reiterated a pledge to overturn a Trump administration ban on travelers from several predominantly Muslim countries, calling it vile.

Wa'el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage Action, said by email that the organisation was seeking to maximise Muslim American turnout in key battleground states.

In Michigan alone one of the states where the organisation has chapters and where Trump won in 2016 by fewer than 11,000 votes he said he believed there are more than 150,000 registered Muslim voters.

Several prominent Muslim American elected officials endorsed Biden for president in a letter organised by Emgage Action ahead of the summit.

Among those who signed the letter are Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Indiana Rep. Andre Carson, all Democrats.

Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, served as a high-profile surrogate for Bernie Sanders before he exited the presidential race in April making her support for Biden potentially helpful as the former vice president seeks to mobilise Muslim voters this fall.

Muslim American voices matter to our communities, to our country, Biden said.

But we all know that your voice hasn't always gotten recognised or represented.

Emgage Action has titled the event Million Muslim Votes, underscoring its emphasis on boosting Muslim turnout in November.

Joe Biden's presence serves not only to galvanise Muslim Americans to cast their ballots, but to usher in an era of engaging with Muslim American communities under a Biden administration, Alzayat said by email before the summit.

The pro-Biden letter from Muslim American elected officials decried a number of Trump's domestic and international policies, including his administration's travel ban and his pullout from the Iran nuclear deal.

A Biden administration will move the nation forward on many of the issues we care about, the letter said, citing racial justice, affordable health care, climate change and immigration.

The Muslim American officials also praised Biden's agenda for their communities.

Among other goals, Biden has vowed to rescind the travel ban affecting Muslims on Day One if he's elected.

In his address, he pledged to include Muslim American voices in his administration, if elected, and to speak out against human rights abuses against Muslim minorities around the world.

I'll continue to champion the rights of Palestinians and Israelis to have a state of their own as I have for decades, each of them a state of their own, he said.

Other state- and local-level Muslim American officials signing onto the pro-Biden letter hail from several states, including Michigan.

New Delhi, Jun 22: India's COVID-19 cases per lakh people is one of the lowest in the world despite its high population density, and the recovery rate has now reached almost 56 per cent, the Union Health Ministry said on Monday.

For every one lakh population, there are 30.04 coronavirus cases in India, while the global average is over three times at 114.67, the ministry said, referring to the WHO Situation Report 153, dated June 21.

“This low figure is thus a testimony to the graded, pre-emptive and pro-active approach the Government of India along with the states and UTs took for prevention, containment and management of COVID-19," the ministry said in a statement.

Citing the WHO Situation Report, the ministry said the US has 671.24 cases per lakh population, while Germany, Spain, Brazil and the UK have 583.88, 526.22, 489.42 and 448.86 cases per lakh population, respectively.

It said Russia has 400.82 cases per lakh people, while Italy, Canada, Iran and Turkey have 393.52, 268.98, 242.82 and 223.53, respectively.

Coming back to India, as on Monday morning, the total number of coronavirus cases stood at 4,25,282 and the death toll at 13,699, according to figures issued by the ministry.

In its update issued at 8 AM Monday, the ministry said 9,440 COVID-19 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 2,37,195, a recovery rate of 55.77 per cent.

Presently, there are 1,74,387 active cases and all are under medical supervision, it said.

"The difference between the recovered patients and the active COVID-19 cases continues to widen. Today, the number of recovered patients has crossed the number of active patients by 62,808," the ministry said.

The COVID-19 testing infrastructure is continuously being ramped up and number of government labs has been increased to 723 and the private labs to 262, adding up to a total of 985, it said.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, a total of 69,50,493 samples have been tested up to 21 June, 1,43,267 of them just on Sunday.

On Monday, the country added 14,821 new COVID-19 cases in a single day, pushing the tally to 4,25,282, while the death toll rose to 13,699 with 445 new fatalities reported till 8 am.

The country breached the four lakh-mark on Sunday, eight days after crossing three lakh COVID-19 cases. It has recorded 2,34,747 infections since June 1.

Monday was the 11th day in a row when the country registered over 10,000 cases.

Mumbai, Jan 10: India’s oil demand growth is set to overtake China by mid-2020s, priming the country for more refinery investment but making it more vulnerable to supply disruption in the Middle East, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.

India’s oil demand is expected to reach 6 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2024 from 4.4 million bpd in 2017, but its domestic production is expected to rise only marginally, making the country more reliant on crude imports and more vulnerable to supply disruption in the Middle East, the agency said.

China’s demand growth is likely to be slightly lower than that of India by the mid-2020s, as per IEA’s China estimates given in November, but the gap would slowly become bigger thereafter.

“Indian economy is and will become even more exposed to risks of supply disruptions, geopolitical uncertainties and the volatility of oil prices,” the IEA said in a report on India’s energy policies.

Brent crude prices topped USD 70 a barrel on rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, putting pressure on emerging markets such as India. Like the rest of Asia, India is highly dependent on Middle East oil supplies with Iraq being its largest crude supplier.

India, which ranks No 3 in terms of global oil consumption after China and the United States, ships in over 80 per cent of its oil needs, of which 65 per cent is from the Middle East through the Strait of Hormuz, the IEA said.

The IEA, which coordinates release of strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) among developed countries in times of emergency, said it is important for India to expand its reserves.

REFINERY INVESTMENTS

India is the world’s fourth largest oil refiner and a net exporter of refined fuel, mainly gasoline and diesel.

India has drawn plans to lift its refining capacity to about 8 million bpd by 2025 from the current about 5 million bpd.

The IEA, however, forecasts India’s refining capacity to rise to 5.7 million bpd by 2024.

This would make “India a very attractive market for refinery investment,” IEA said.

Drawn to India’s higher fuel demand potential, global oil majors like Saudi Aramco, BP, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co and Total are looking at investing in India’s oil sector.

Saudi Aramco and ADNOC aim to own a 50 per cent stake in a planned 1.2-million bpd refinery in western Maharashtra state, for which land is yet to be acquired.