Modi govt worked hard to earn 10% stake in UAE oilfield: Pradhan

Kolkata, Mar 9: A diabetic man died in the isolation ward of a hospital in West Bengal's Murshidabad on Sunday, a day after he was admitted there with suspected symptoms of coronavirus following his return from Saudi Arabia.

According to doctors, he was admitted to the hospital with fever, cough and cold.

Though test results of his blood and swab samples for novel coronavirus were awaited, it can be said that he died probably of diabetes, Director of Health Services Ajay Chakraborty told PTI.

"The man was highly diabetic and was on insulin. He returned home from Saudi Arabia and had no money to take insulin for the last three to four days.

"He was also suffering from fever, cough and cold. He was admitted to the isolation ward of the Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital yesterday and died today," the health services director said.

"We are waiting for the results of medical tests. The possibility of his death due to novel coronavirus infection is remote," he said.

However, precautions will be taken during the last rites of the victim according to the directives set by the central and state governments for patients who die of the virus, another senior official said.

"Family members will not be allowed to touch the body since the man had been suffering from cough and breathlessness. Those performing his last rites will be given protective gear, masks and gloves. Though test results are yet to be known, we do not want to take any chance," he said.

Meanwhile, the state health department has issued a directive to all private medical facilities to create a system for assessing all patients at admission allowing early recognition of possible COVID-19 infection and immediate isolation of patients with suspected novel coronavirus infection in an area separate from other patients.

Lucknow, Jun 8: The coronavirus which has now been assigned a gender, is being worshipped in Uttar Pradesh also after Bihar as superstition run deep. Women in some villages in Tumkuhiraj, Kasia, Hata, Captanganj and Khadda tehsil in Kushinagar district have started worshipping 'Corona Mai' and are pleading with her to spare lives.

These women have dug a small pit in the field, filled it with water and each one offers nine cloves and nine 'laddoos' to 'Corona Mai' to appease her.

Women from adjoining villages are now flocking to the 'temple' to pray to 'Corona Mai'.

Some local people have appealed to the district administration to stop such activities which spread superstition and misinformation.

Radhey Lal, a school teacher in Kasia, said, "The authorities must stop such activities which promote superstition. Everyone knows that there is no cure for corona and this kind of activities must be stopped."

May 28: Abdul Kareem was forced out of school and into a life of odd jobs like repairing bicycles before he finally managed to pull his family out of abject poverty transporting goods across Delhi in a mini truck.

The job, and the slim financial security that came with it, was the first stepping stone to a better life.

All that is now gone as India reels under the economic impact of its protracted coronavirus lockdown. Mr Kareem's out of a job and stranded in his village in Uttar Pradesh with his wife and two children. Their minuscule savings from his Rs 9,000 a month job have been exhausted, and the money he saved for books and school uniforms is spent.

"I don't know what the job situation will be in Delhi once we go back," Mr Kareem said. "We can't stay hungry so I will do whatever I find."

At least 49 million people across the world are expected to plunge into "extreme poverty" -- those living on less than $1.90 per day -- as a direct result of the pandemic's economic destruction and India leads that projection, with the World Bank estimating some 12 million of its citizens will be pushed to the very margins this year.

Some 122 million Indians were forced out of jobs last month alone, according to estimates from the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, a private sector think tank. Daily wage workers and those employed by small businesses have taken the worst hit. These include hawkers, roadside vendors, workers employed in the construction industry and many who eke out a living by pushing handcarts and rickshaws.

For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who came to power in 2014 promising to lift the poorest citizens out of poverty, the fallout from the lockdown brings with it significant political risk. He won an even larger second term majority last year on the strength of his government's popular social programs that directly targeted the poor, such as the provision of cooking gas cylinders, power and public housing. The breadth and depth of this renewed economic pain will only increase the pressure on his government as it works to steer the country's economy back on track.

"Much of the Indian government's efforts to mitigate poverty over the years could be negated in a matter of just a few months," said Ashwajit Singh, managing director of IPE Global, a development sector consultancy that advises several multinational aid agencies. Noting that he did not expect unemployment rates to improve this year, Singh said: "More people could die from hunger than the virus."

Desperate Times

Mr Singh points to a United Nations University study estimating 104 million Indians could fall below the World Bank-determined poverty line of $3.2 a day for lower-middle-income countries. This will take the proportion of people living in poverty from 60% -- or 812 million currently, to 68% or 920 million -- a situation last seen in the country more than a decade ago, he said.

A World Bank report found the country had been making significant progress and was close to losing its status as the country with the most poor citizens. The impact of PM Modi's lockdown risks reversing those gains.

The World Bank and the CMIE estimates were published in late April and early May respectively. Since then the situation has only become grimmer, with harrowing images of people making desperate attempts to reach their villages, on crowded buses, the flatbeds of trucks and even on foot or on bicycles dominating media coverage.

The Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business analyzed the unemployment data from the CMIE, collected through surveys covering about 5,800 homes across 27 states in April.

Researchers found rural areas were the hardest hit, and the economic misery was the result of the lockdown, rather than the spread of infections in the hinterland. More than 80% of households had experienced a drop income and many won't survive much longer without aid, they wrote in a report.

The government has promised cheap credit to farmers, direct transfer of money to the poor and eased access to food security programs -- but these help people who have some documentation, which many of the poorest don't. With millions of impoverished people now in transit across the country, the food security situation is dire -- news reports are emerging of people foraging through piles of rotting fruit or eating leaves.

Shattered Economy

The economy was already growing at its slowest pace in over a decade when the virus struck. The lockdown, which came into effect on March 25, has hammered it, stalling business activity and putting a lid on consumption, pushing the economy to what may be its first full-year contraction in more than four decades.

It's dire enough to warrant the country exiting its lockdown, as it has been doing incrementally since May 4, even as its infections are surging. India is now Asia's virus hotspot with infections crossing 151,000 according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

PM Modi, who has come under criticism for the pain inflicted on the poor, has said his government will spend $265 billion or about 10% of its GDP to help Asia's third-largest economy weather the pandemic's fallout. But experts say only a part of it is direct fiscal stimulus, and probably smaller than the total damage done to the economy during the lockdown period.

"What is especially worrying is the government's response," said Reetika Khera, an economics professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. "The epidemic will magnify existing -- and already high -- inequalities in India."

Still, the economic measures aren't going to kick in for some time and industry will likely struggle to restart because of the flight of labour from industrial hubs.

And as the harsh summer unfolds more pain lies in store in the villages now dealing with returning migrant workers.

"There are no factories or industries here, there are just hills," said Surendra Hadia Damor, who had walked nearly 100 km from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, before a voluntary organisation drove him to his village in the neighboring state of Rajasthan. "We can survive for a month or two and then try and find a job nearby -- we will see what happens."