PM Modi lays the foundation stone for Ram Mandir in the presence of RSS chief

New Delhi, Apr 22: The number of COVID-19 cases in India reached 20,471on Wednesday, with Maharashtra continuing to be the worst-hit state.

Out of the total number of cases, 15,859 are active cases, 3,959 cured or discharged and 652 deaths.

Maharashtra has reported the highest number of cases across the country, with the count at 5,221, followed by Delhi (2,156) and Gujarat (2,272). Maharashtra reported 251 deaths, the highest fatality rate than any other state.
Fresh cases were reported today from Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Kashmir among other states and UTs.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved Rs 15,000 crore for 'India COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package'. The funds sanctioned will be utilised in three phases.

While Rs 7,774 crore has been provisioned for immediate COVID-19 emergency response, the rest would be used for medium-term support (1-4 years) to be provided under mission mode approach.

Briefing mediapersons about the package here on Wednesday, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said the key objectives of the package include mounting emergency response to slow and limit COVID-19 in India through the development of diagnostics and COV1D-dedicated treatment facilities, centralised procurement of essential medical equipment and drugs required for treatment of infected patients, strengthen and build resilient national and state health systems to support prevention and preparedness for future disease outbreaks.

Javadekar said that no decision has been taken so far regarding the resumption of flight operations.

"No decision has been taken yet on the resumption of flight operations. An announcement will be made on time as to when it will resume," Javadekar told reporters.
Here's a quick read on the COVID-19 related updates:

1. Two Chinese manufactures of rapid antibody test, Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech Co. Ltd and Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics Inc are now the subject of investigations by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) as the rapid testing antibody kits of these two companies delivered results with wide variations and low accuracy.

2. Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma said that 735 doctors have recently been recruited and posted to hospitals in the state.

3. The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has settled 10.02 lakh claims, including 6.06 lakh COVID-19 cases, under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) in 15 working days.

4. Secretary of Overseas Indian Affairs in the Ministry of External Affairs, Vikas Swarup, interacted with envoys of nearly 30 Central European countries on Wednesday and shared thoughts on fighting COVID-19.

5. Taking cognisance of the need for essential services like plumbing during COVID 19 crisis, the Indian Plumbing Skills Council (IPSC) aligned to Skill India programme, under the aegis of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), has prepared a database of over 900 plumbers who are ready to provide their services during the lockdown period across the country.

6. Braving all odds, workers of the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) are conducting door to door surveys in the Red Zones of Nagpur putting their lives at risk.

7. Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri on Wednesday said that Air India has lifted about 300 tonnes of essential medical cargo so far this month through China-India aerobridge. It is planned that Air India along with SpiceJet and Blue Dart will airlift another 220 tonnes of this critical cargo in the next three days.

8. Ministry of Railways has offered to supply 2.6 lakh meals daily from various railway kitchens wherever the district administration is willing and able to pick up cooked meals and distribute among the needy. This has been communicated to district authorities all over the country.

9. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Wednesday said that the state's COVID-19 doubling rate stands at 26.6 days and Uttarakhand ranks third in preventing coronavirus infection.

10. The Central government has brought an ordinance to end violence against health workers, making it a cognizable, non-bailable offence with imprisonment up to seven years for those found guilty.

Srinagar, Mar 7: Two more accused, including a man who allegedly bought chemicals online for making improvised explosive device (IED) to be used in an attack on a convoy of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama last year, were arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday, an official said.

The terror attack left 40 CRPF personnel dead in south Kashmir's Pulwama last year.

Waiz-ul-Islam, 19, from Srinagar and Mohammad Abbass Rather, 32, from Pulwama were arrested by the NIA, taking the number of those arrested in the case in the past week to five.

"During initial interrogation, Islam disclosed that he used his Amazon online shopping account to procure chemicals for making IEDs, batteries and other accessories on the directions of Pakistani Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists," the official said.

He said Islam personally delivered the items to the JeM terrorists after buying them online as a part of the conspiracy to carry out the attack.

"Rather is an old overground worker of the JeM. He has disclosed that he gave shelter at his home to Jaish terrorist and IED expert Mohd Umar after he came to Kashmir in April-May 2018," the official said.

Rather also sheltered other JeM terrorists - suicide bomber Adil Ahmad Dar, Sameer Ahmed Dar and Kamran, a Pakistani -- at his house before the Pulwama attack, the official said.

"He also facilitated safe shelter for the JeM terrorists, including Adil, at the house of accused Tariq Ahmed Shah and his daughter Insha Jan of Hakripora, who were arrested on March 3," the official said.

He said Islam and Rather will be produced before the NIA special court in Jammu on Saturday, while further investigation in the case continues. The NIA took over the case to probe the conspiracy behind the February 14, 2019, attack in Pulwama.

The last video of Adil, which was released by the JeM from Pakistan after the terror attack, was filmed at the home of Tariq Ahmed Shah. On February 28, the NIA achieved a major breakthrough in the case when it arrested 22-year-old Shakir Bashir Magrey, a furniture shop owner and resident of Pulwama.

Magrey had given shelter and other logistical assistance to suicide bomber Adil. He was introduced to Adil in mid-2018 by Pakistani terrorist Mohammad Umar Farooq and he became a full-time OGW of the JeM.

The explosives used in the attack were determined through forensic probe to be ammonium nitrate, nitro-glycerin and RDX. During investigation into the attack, the identity of the suicide bomber to be Adil Ahmad Dar was confirmed through DNA matching with that of his father.

The other key terrorists involved in the attack have been found to be JeM's south Kashmir divisional head Muddasir Ahmad Khan, killed in an operation by the security forces on March 11 last year; Pakistani terrorists Muhammad Umar Farooq and IED expert Kamran, both killed on March 29 last year; the owner of the car Sajjad Ahmad Bhat, a resident of Anantnag who was killed on June 16 last year, and Qari Yassir, JeM's commander for Kashmir who was killed on January 25 this year.

Jun 9: Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants all 1.3 billion Indians to be “vocal for local” — meaning, to not just use domestically made products but also to promote them. As an overseas citizen living in Hong Kong, I’m doing my bit by very vocally demanding Indian mangoes on every trip to the grocery. But half the summer is gone, and not a single slice so far.

My loss is due to India’s COVID-19 lockdown, which has severely pinched logistics, a perennial challenge in the huge, infrastructure-starved country. But more worrying than the disruption is the fruity political response to it. Rather than being a wake-up call for fixing supply chains, the pandemic seems to be putting India on an isolationist course. Why?

Granted that the liberal view that trade is good and autarky bad isn’t exactly fashionable anywhere right now. What makes India’s lurch troublesome is that the pace and direction of economic nationalism may be set by domestic business interests. The Indian liberals, many of whom are Western-trained academics, authors and — at least until a few years ago — policy makers, want a more competitive economy. They will be powerless to prevent the slide.

Modi’s call for a self-reliant India has been echoed by Home Minister Amit Shah, the cabinet’s unofficial No. 2, in a television interview. If Indians don’t buy foreign-made goods, the economy will see a jump, he said. The strategy — although it’s too nebulous yet to call it that — has a geopolitical element. A military standoff with China is under way, apparently triggered by India’s completion of a road and bridge near the common border in the tense Himalayan region of Ladakh. It’s very expensive to fight even a limited war there. With India’s economy flattened by COVID, New Delhi may be looking for ways to restore the status quo and send Beijing a signal.

Economic boycotts, such as Chinese consumers’ rejection of Japanese goods over territorial disputes in the East China Sea, are well understood as statecraft. In these times, it’s not even necessary to name an enemy. An undercurrent of popular anger against China, the source of both the virus and India’s biggest bilateral trade deficit, is supposed to do the job. But is it ever that easy?

A hastily introduced policy to stock only local goods in police and paramilitary canteens became a farcical exercise after the list of banned items ended up including products by the local units of Colgate-Palmolive Co., Nestle SA, and Unilever NV, which have had significant Indian operations for between 60 and 90 years, as well as Dabur India Ltd., a New Delhi-based maker of Ayurveda brands. The since-withdrawn list demonstrates the practical difficulty of bureaucrats trying to find things in a globalized world that are 100% indigenous.

Free-trade champions fret that the prime minister, whom they saw as being on their side six years ago, is acting against their advice to dismantle statist controls on land, labor and capital to help make the country more competitive. Engage with the world more, not less, they caution. But Modi also has to satisfy the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the umbrella Hindu organisation that gets him votes. Its backbone of small traders, builders and businessmen — the RSS admits only men — was losing patience with the anemic economy even before the pandemic. Now, they’re in deep trouble, because India’s broken financial system won’t deliver even state-guaranteed loans to them.

The U.S.-China tensions — over trade, intellectual property, COVID responsibility and Hong Kong’s autonomy — offer a perfect backdrop. A dire domestic economy and trouble at the border provide the foreground. Big business will dial economic nationalism up and down to hit a trifecta of goals: Block competition from the People's Republic; make Western rivals fall in line and do joint ventures; and tap deep overseas capital markets. The first goal is being achieved with newly placed restrictions on investment from any country that shares a land border with India. The second aim is to be realized by corporate lobbying to influence India's whimsical economic policies. As for the third objective, with the regulatory environment becoming tougher for U.S.-listed Chinese companies like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., an opportunity may open up for Indian firms.

All this may bring India Shenzhen-style enclaves of manufacturing and trade, but it will concentrate economic power in fewer hands, something that worries liberals. They’re moved by the suffering of India’s low-wage workers, who have borne the brunt of the COVID shutdown. But when their vision of a more just society and fairer income distribution prompts them to make common cause with the ideological Left, they’re quickly repelled by the Marxist voodoo that all cash, property, bonds and real estate held by citizens or within the nation “must be treated as national resources available during this crisis.” Who will invest in a country that does that instead of just printing money?

At the same time, when liberals look to the business class, they see a sudden swelling of support for ideas like a universal basic income. They wonder if this isn’t a ploy by industry to outsource part of the cost of labor to the taxpayer. Slogans like Modi’s vocal-for-local stir the pot and thicken the confusion. The value-conscious Indian consumer couldn’t give two hoots for calls to buy Indian, but large firms will know how to exploit economic nationalism. One day soon, I’ll get my mangoes — from them.