No threat to Grand Alliance, will expose BJP's design: Tejaswi

New Delhi, Mar 2: As communal violence spiked in north-east Delhi earlier this week, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh residents of a colony came together and stood guard against frenzied mobs which ran riot in nearby areas vandalising homes, shops and torching cars.

They have not let their guard down even as the situation is limping back to normalcy following four days of violence that has claimed at least 42 lives and left over 200 injured.

The B-Block colony in Yamuna Vihar has a Hindu-dominated Bahjanpura on one side and Muslim populated Ghonda on the other.

People from all faiths in the locality sit outside their homes at night and deal with any suspected outsider, Arib, a dentist in his 30s, said.

"It is the sloganeering by mobs that causes panic in the dead of night. Such slogans are from both sides and we hear groups of people moving forward towards our area.

"This is where we let the Muslim locals deal with Muslim groups and Hindu residents deal with Hindu groups coming from outside," he said.

Businessmen, doctors and people working at government offices stuck together as violence reached its crest on Monday and Tuesday, and have been guarding the locality round the clock.

Earlier, the locals had claimed inadequate police deployment in the area, but were satisfied as patrolling by security personnel increased in the last two days.

Charanjeet Singh, a Sikh who owns a transport firm, said residents have ensured that not too many people gather to guard the colony at night. It has been decided not use sticks or rods, an idea which seems to have worked in maintaining peace, he said.

"I was 10 years old when we came to this locality from Uttar Pradesh's Meerut in 1982. There were riots in 1984 and tension in 2002, but even then our area remained peaceful. We have always been united and that is the way we have helped each other," Singh, who is now in his 50s, told PTI.

Faisal, a businessman in his 30s, said after two days of major violence, there was palpable tension in the area. "Nobody could sleep in the neighbourhood even on Wednesday and Thursday when the situation was brought under control," he said.

Faisal said around 4 am on Wednesday, three to four miscreants had torched a car, but were chased away by vigilant residents. They raised an alarm and others gathered, saving other vehicles parked nearby from being damaged, he added.

On the idea of not keeping sticks while guarding B-Block, Singh said, "Violence begets violence, crowd begets crowd. We thought if somebody would see sticks or rods in our hands from a distance and large crowds standing guard, it is likely they would want to come prepared. This could fuel violence."

"Now, if there is some young man returning late in the night, we identify if he belongs to our area. If not, we normally inform him about the situation and guide him to his destination, if required," he added.

Seventy-year-old V K Sharma said people in his colony never had any trouble with each other, as he blamed "outside elements" for the violence in north-east Delhi.

"Some people have some problem with symbols. If they find a particular religion's symbol on a shop, home or a car, they vandalise it.

"This is on both sides, Hindus as well as Muslims. But not all people in all religion are like that. There are good people who outnumber these handful people involved in violence," he said.

The violence happened for two days but it would take months for fear to subside, Sharma said, as he took out his two granddaughters, aged nine and two, out for ice cream.

"I cannot reduce the tension outside my home, but at least I can make these kids feel good by reducing their craving for ice cream,” he added.

Colony resident Shiv Kumar, a property consultant, and Wasim, a government official, said they too were members of this voluntary guards' team of the colony which stays up at night to fend off miscreants.

United Nations, Apr 16: WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has welcomed the world health body's cooperation with India to leverage strategies that helped the country win its war against polio into the response to COVID-19 outbreak, saying such joint efforts will help defeat the pandemic.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it will work with India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to leverage the strategies that helped the country eradicate polio to fight the pandemic.

Migrants who returned to UP and Bihar were hurriedly housed in schools and panchayat buildings, which were turned into quarantine centres. However, unhygienic conditions and people running away have proved to be a problem

The WHO's national polio surveillance network will be engaged to strengthen COVID-19 surveillance and its field staff will continue to support immunization and elimination of tuberculosis and other diseases.

“Great news: @MoHFW_INDIA & @WHOSEARO initiated a systematic engagement of @WHO's national polio surveillance network, and other field staff, for India's #COVID19 response, tapping into the best practices & resources that helped win its war against polio,” the WHO director-general tweeted, referring to India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and World Health Organization Regional Office for South-East Asia.

According to the Johns Hopkins University data, over 2 million people are infected by the virus and more than 136,000 people have died of the disease globally.

Ghebreyesus expressed gratitude to Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan “for his leadership and collaboration” with WHO. “Through these joint efforts we can defeat the #coronavirus and save lives. Together!”

India eliminated polio in 2014.
According to a WHO press release, Vardhan said in New Delhi that “time and again the Government of India and WHO together have shown our ability, competence and prowess to the whole world. With our combined meticulous work, done with full sincerity and dedication, we were able to get rid of polio.”

“All of you in the field – IDSP (Integrated Disease Surveillance Project), state rapid response teams and WHO - are our ‘surveillance corona warriors'. With your joint efforts we can defeat the coronavirus and save lives,” Vardhan added.

WHO South-East Asia Regional Director Poonam Khetrapal Singh said the National Polio Surveillance Project (WHO-NPSP) played a critical role in strengthening surveillance for polio that generated useful, timely and accurate data to guide policies, strategies and interventions until transmission of the poliovirus was interrupted in the country,” adding that the other WHO field staff involved with elimination of tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases and hypertension control initiative were also significant resources.

Singh added that “it is now time to use all your experience, knowledge and skills, with the same rigor and discipline that you showed while monitoring polio activities, to support districts with surveillance, contact tracing and containment activities.”

The WHO release said strengths of the NPSP team – surveillance, data management, monitoring and supervision, and responding to local situations and challenges – will be utilized to supplement efforts of National Centre for Disease Control, IDSP and Indian Council of Medical Research to strengthen COVID-19 surveillance.

The NPSP team will also support in sharing information and best practices and help states and districts calibrate their response based on transmission scenarios and local capacities.

The WHO field staff will continue to support immunization and surveillance and elimination of Tuberculosis and Neglected Tropical Diseases, Singh said, adding, “disease outbreaks can negatively impact progress in a range of areas, from maternal and child mortality to vaccine-preventable diseases and other treatable conditions. India had been making stupendous progress in these areas and we cannot afford for India's remarkable progress to be set back or reversed.”

Bhopal, Mar 12: The Madhya Pradesh Congress on Thursday took a dig at Jyotiraditya Scindia, who broke ranks with the party and joined BJP on Wednesday, by pointing out that neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor Amit Shah had not even put out as much a tweet to welcome him in the party, and construed it as "humiliation" for the "maharaja".

"Not even a tweet by Narendra Modi-ji or Amit Shah-ji to welcome Scindia-ji! Modi-ji, Shah-ji, at least do not do it so soon. It has not even been 24 hours yet and you guys have already started humiliating him...!" Madya Pradesh Congress tweeted in Hindi.

Taking a jibe at Mr Scindia, a member of the erstwhile royal family of Gwalior who ended his 18-year-long association with the Congress party on a bitter note, the state Congress said: "He is a maharaja, the one whose history is often mentioned by Shivraj-ji (former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan)."

On Wednesday, Jyotiraditya  Scindia joined BJP in New Delhi in the presence of party president JP Nadda. He had resigned from Congress a day earlier after meeting Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mr Scindia will file his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections on March 13. He is expected to go to Bhopal today.