Saviour or Sonia's poodle, asks UK paper about PM Manmohan Singh

July 17, 2012
manmohsonia

New Delhi, July 17: Hailed abroad not too long ago as statesman and economic guru, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is at the receiving end of increasing harsh comment with British daily, The Independent, critiquing his tenure under a disparaging headline "Manmohan Singh - India's saviour or Sonia's poodle?"

The report, although less widely circulated than several others in the UK, is the latest foreign publication to question Singh's legacy and his capacity to regain control of a coalition reeling under corruption scams, an unresponsive bureaucracy, bullying allies and a freeze in reforms.

More damningly, The Independent refers to an unequal sharing of power between Singh and Sonia, saying "Observers say one of Singh's problems is that he has no genuine political power. Rather, he owes his position to Sonia Gandhi...This has meant he has sometimes been unable to even control his cabinet and his failure to more quickly address actions of coalition minister, accused of defrauding the country up to $40 billion in a telecom licence scam, led him to being accused of further weakness."

The report says Singh's reforming zeal has evaporated and slowed the country's growth while political opponents are attacking him for overseeing an administration mired in corruption and sloth. Reference points include the 5.3% growth shock of the first quarter and downgrades by rating agencies among other indicators of a slowing economy.

Reacting to the report in the British daily, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said, "It is unfortunate that some people misuse editorial licence. While criticism is to be taken in one's stride; what needs to be kept in mind is that criticism should not cross boundaries of decency and start bordering on the offensive and I do hope that people who are entrusted with the responsibility of handing of editorial content would definitely keep this submission in mind."

However, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad saw the report as a validation of his party's criticism of the PM. "The non-performance of the Manmohan Singh government has been known for long. Now well-known journals on whose certificates the PM and Congress used to bank on are saying the same thing. The important question remains on how Sonia Gandhi can escape responsibility as she is the source of the PM's political authority."

Like in a cover story in Time magazine recently, The Independent report suggests that time is fast running out for Singh if he wants to retrieve his legacy as the reformer who released India from the shackles of the socialist dogma with a path-breaking Budget in 1991 after the P V Narasimha Rao government took office.

Taken together, the spate of adverse reports in international publications represent a souring of mood on the man, who was not so long ago hailed as the author of India's success story and savant of global economy.

The Time cover with its sharp headline "Underachiever" had noted that the PM needs to emerge from his personal and political gloom if he is to retrieve the stalling India story. The report quoted political analysts to say Singh might yet pull off a recovery, but needed to shed his government's reluctance to move forward on reforms.

Prior to the Time cover, The Economist had referred to the PM as a "lame duck" in a report on his meeting with Pakistani president Asif Zardari. In another report, it noted that "Singh may not be remembered as the man who reformed India's economy, but the man who only got the job half done." The tone of other publications like the Financial Times has also become more questioning, wondering if Singh can actually quell disquiet over India's economic growth.


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Agencies
February 10,2020

New Delhi, Fevb 10: Of the countries most at risk of importing coronavirus cases, India ranks 17th, researchers have found on the basis of a mathematical model for the expected global spread of the virus that originated in China's Wuhan area in December 2019.

So far, India has reported three coronavirus positive cases -- all from Kerala.

Among the airports in India, the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi is most at risk, followed by airports in Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi, according to the model.

The new model for predicting global novel coronavirus cases has been developed by researchers from Humboldt University and Robert Koch Institute in Germany.

"The spread of the virus on an international scale is dominated by air travel," said the study.

"Wuhan, the seventh largest city in China with 11 million residents, was the relevant major domestic air transportation hub with many connecting international flights before the city was effectively quarantined on January 23, 2020, and the Wuhan airport was closed. By then the virus had already spread to other Chinese provinces as well as other countries," it added.

The researchers said that it is possible to estimate how likely it is that the virus spreads to other areas by looking at air travel passenger numbers.

"The busier a flight route, the more probable it is that an infected passenger travels this route. Using these probabilistic concepts, we calculate the relative import risk to other airports. When calculating the import risk, we also take into account connecting flights and travel routes that involve multiple destinations," said the study.

The top 10 countries and regions at risk of importing coronavirus cases are: Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, USA, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia, according to the model.

While Thailand's national import risk is 2.1%, it is 0.2% for India, found the research.

The foundation of the model is the worldwide air transportation network (WAN) that connects approximately 4,000 airports with more than 25,000 direct connections.

The model accounts for both, the current distribution of confirmed cases in mainland China as well as airport closures that were implemented as a mitigation strategy.

This network theoretic model is based on the concept of effective distance and is an extension of a model introduced in the 2013 paper "The Hidden Geometry of Complex, Network-Driven Contagion Phenomena" published in the journal Science.

The current outbreak of the 2019-nCoV virus started in Wuhan city, Hubei province, China. While the first cases were reported as early as December 8, 2019, the outbreak gained global attention on December 31, 2019, when the World Health Organization was alerted to "several cases of pneumonia" by an unknown virus.

The new virus was soon identified as a novel coronavirus and named 2019-nCOV. It belongs to the family of viruses that include the common cold and viruses such as SARS and MERS. On January 20, 2020, it was confirmed that the coronavirus can be transmitted between humans, greatly increasing the risk of a global spread.

The death toll due to the novel coronavirus outbreak in China has increased to 811 on Sunday, surpassing that of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003.

Although about 20 countries have confirmed cases, China has accounted for about 99 per cent of those infected. The first foreign victims of the virus both died on Saturday in Wuhan.

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Agencies
February 4,2020

New Delhi, Feb 4: Four-month-old Mohammed Jahaan accompanied his mother almost every day to the Shaheen Bagh demonstration where he was a favourite with the protesters who would take turns to hold him and often draw the tricolour on his cheeks.

Jahaan will not be seen at Shaheen Bagh anymore. He died last week after acquiring a severe cold and congestion following exposure to the winter chill at the outdoor demonstration. His mother is, however, undeterred and determined to participate in the protests, saying it is "for the future of my children".

The infant's shattered parents, Mohammed Arif and Nazia, live in a tiny shanty put together with plastic sheets and cloth in Batla House area and have two other children -- a five-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son.

Hailing from Bareilly in UP, the couple is barely able to make ends meet. Arif is an embroidery worker and also drives an e-rickshaw. His wife helps him in his embroidery work.

"I haven't been able to earn enough in the last month despite driving the battery rickshaw in addition to my embroidery work. Now with our baby's demise, we have lost everything," he said, showing a picture of little Jahaan wearing a woolen cap that read 'I Love My India'.

A visibly disturbed Nazia said Jahaan passed away in his sleep on night of January 30 after returning from the protests.

"I had returned from Shaheen Baag at around 1 AM. After putting him and other kids to sleep, even I went to sleep. In the morning, I suddenly found him motionless. He was gone in his sleep," she said.

The couple said they took their motionless baby to the nearby Alshifa Hospital on the morning of January 31 where he was declared dead on arrival.

Nazia, who had been visiting the Shaheen Bagh demonstration everyday with Jahaan since December 18, says that he died after catching a cold that turned lethal.

She said she didn't realise that his congestion was so severe. However, the baby's death certificate issued by the hospital does not mention any specific reason for the death.

Shazia, a neighbour who was present at the couple's home, said Nazia had fought with her mother and husband to visit Shaheen Bagh everyday. Nazia would gather all women in the bylane outside her house so that they could together walk to the demonstration, around 2 km away. Sometimes, Arif would drop some of them to Shaheen Bagh on his e-rickshaw.

Nazia said she strongly feels that the CAA and NRC are against the welfare of all communities and will join the Shaheen Bagh protests, but this time without her children.

"Why was I doing this? For my children and the children of all us who need a bright future in this country," she told PTI.

"The CAA divides us on religion and should never be accepted. I don't know if there is politics involved but I know that I must question what is against the future of my children."

Arif, however, blamed the NRC and CAA for his child's death.

"Had the government not brought CAA and NRC, people would not have protested and my wife would not have joined them, my son would have been alive," he said.

Comments

Angry Indian
 - 
Tuesday, 4 Feb 2020

inna lillahi inna ilaihi rajioon...so sad

 

Modi, delhi police and Amith Shah the biggest EVIL of india is responsible for this samll soul death...

 

you have to answer one day after you die...dont think this world is permenant..

 

you will never see heaven forever...you must root in hell

 

GADDAR PM & HM

 

Jai Hind

 

 

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News Network
July 31,2020

New Delhi, Jul 31: Air India has operated more than 2800 flights and flown over 3 lakh passengers worldwide till now under the Vande Bharat Mission.

"Air India under Vande Bharat Mission Operated more than 2800 flights and flown more than 3 lakh, 80 thousand passengers worldwide till now," Air India said in a tweet on Thursday.

The fifth phase of the Government of India's 'Vande Bharat' mission, aimed at evacuating Indian nationals stranded in various foreign countries owing to restrictions on air travel, will begin early next month, August 1.

"Under Vande Bharat Mission, we have already brought back more than 2.5 lakh stranded Indians from 53 commies," Air India had earlier said in a statement.

Over 7.88 lakh Indians stranded abroad due to coronavirus pandemic have returned under Vande Bharat Mission till July 22, Ministry of External Affairs had said.

The government started Vande Bharat Mission on May 7.

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