Ockhi continues to batter Kerala; 2,700 evacuated from Ernakulam

News Network
December 2, 2017

Ernakulam, Dec 2: The coastal areas of Ernakulam district in Kerala on Saturday faced the wrath of raging sea in the wake of cyclone Ockhi. Nearly 2,700 people from 718 families were evacuated to seven shelters spread over five villages in Kochi taluk as on Saturday afternoon.

The first casualty in connection with the natural calamity was also reported from the district as 42-year-old Rexon was found dead near his inundated home at Maruvakkad in West Kochi’s Chellanam area on Saturday morning. After being moved to a shelter the previous evening, he had returned home in the morning to take stock of the situation. It is suspected that he had collapsed and died unnoticed since all families in the neighbourhood were in shelters.

Hundreds of families at Chellanam had to be evacuated overnight to safe shelters after unprecedented sea incursion flooded their homes and then breached the road nearby. There was no respite for the residents of Chellanam as an already rough sea turned worse during the time of high tide late on Friday evening.

“Big waves started lashing the shore around 8 p.m. and it continued till around 11 p.m. The sea turned relatively calm thereafter but again turned rough around 2 a.m. People belonging to older generation said that they had not seen anything similar during their lifetime,” said Milton Antony, a local resident.

The stretch between Maruvakkad Velankanni Church and Bazaar areas where the seawall had not been built was the worst-affected. “The receding waves have deposited black mud along the shoreline clearing, which would need extensive cleaning,” said A.X. Antony Sheelan, a former block panchayat president from the area.

He said with the increase in the depth of the harbour, areas up to 22 kilometres to its south had become susceptible to vagaries of sea rage as was seen in Chellanam and nearby areas now.

St. Francis Church Parish Hall in Kumbalanghi village, which shelters 200 families and 800 people, has the largest number of evacuees. Devi Vilasam LPS at Veliyathamparambu in Kumbalanghi has 156 families and 595 occupants; GHSS Puthenthodu in Chellanam village 139 families and 494 members; St. Mary’s HS in Chellanam village 130 families and 425 members; Government UPS, Edavanakkad 38 families and 164 members; Government Fisheries School, Nayarambalam, 40 families and 110 members; and St. George Church Parish Hall at Kumbalanghi village shelters 15 families and 60 members.

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News Network
July 18,2020

New Delhi, Jul 18: The Covid-19 lockdown-led reduction in air pollution levels across five Indian cities, including Delhi and Mumbai, may have prevented about 630 premature deaths, and saved USD 690 million in health costs in the country, according to a new study.

Scientists, including those from the University of Surrey in the UK, assessed the levels of harmful fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from vehicles and other sources in five Indian cities -- Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad -- since the beginning of the lockdown period.

The study, published in the journal Sustainable Cities and Society, compared these lockdown PM2.5 figures from 25 March up until 11 May, with those from similar periods of the preceding five years, and found that the measure reduced pollution levels in all these places.

According to the scientists, during this period, the levels of these harmful air pollutants reduced by 10 per cent in Mumbai, and by up to 54 per cent in Delhi.

"The percentage reduction for the other cities ranged from 24 to 32 per cent, which was slightly smaller than the measured values for Delhi and Mumbai," the scientists noted in the study.

"While the reduction in PM2.5 pollution may not be surprising, the size of the reduction should make us all take notice of the impact we have been having on the planet," said Prashant Kumar, a co-author of the study from the University of Surrey.

The scientists said these reductions in PM2.5 were comparable to those reported in other cities across the world, such as in Austria's capital Vienna (60 per cent), and Shanghai (42 per cent) in China.

They also calculated the monetary value of the reduced mortality due to air pollution and found that the lowered levels of PM2.5 may have saved 630 people from premature death, and USD 690 million in health costs in India.

Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases, deaths on July 17

According to the researchers, the present lockdown situation offers observational opportunities regarding potential control systems and regulations for improved urban air quality.

They said an integrated approach might help in understanding the overall impacts of Covid-19 lockdown-style interventions and support the implementation of relevant policy frameworks.

"This is an opportunity for us all to discuss and debate what the 'new normal' should look like - particularly when it comes to the quality of the air we breathe," Kumar said.

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Agencies
January 24,2020

New Delhi, Jan 24: The Election Commission of India on Friday told the Supreme Court that its 2018 direction asking poll candidates to declare their criminal antecedents in electronic and print media has not helped curb criminalisation of politics. The poll panel suggested that instead of asking candidates to declare criminal antecedents in the media, political parties should be asked not to give tickets to candidates with criminal background.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and S Ravindra Bhat asked the ECI to come up with a framework within one week which can help curb criminalisation of politics in nation's interest.

The top court asked the petitioner BJP leader and advocate Ashiwini Upadhyay and the poll panel to sit together and come up with suggestions which would help him in curbing criminalisation of politics.

In September 2018, a five-judge Constitution bench had unanimously held that all candidates will have to declare their criminal antecedents to the Election Commission before contesting polls and had called for a wider publicity, through print and electronic media about antecedents of candidates.

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Satya Vishwasi
 - 
Saturday, 25 Jan 2020

What about those criminals who were already in parliament and vidahan sabhas? shall the ECI cancel their positions?

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News Network
July 3,2020

Jul 3: China under President Xi Jinping has stepped up its "aggressive" foreign policy toward India and "resisted" efforts to clarify the Line of Actual Control that prevented a lasting peace from being realised, according to a report released by a US Congress appointed commission.

The armies of India and China have been locked in a bitter standoff at multiple locations in eastern Ladakh for the last seven weeks, and the tension escalated after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a violent clash in the Galwan Valley on June 15.

“Under General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping, Beijing has stepped up its aggressive foreign policy toward New Delhi. Since 2013, China has engaged in five major altercations with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC),” said a brief issued by US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

"Beijing and New Delhi have signed a series of agreements and committed to confidence-building measures to stabilise their border, but China has resisted efforts to clarify the LAC, preventing a lasting peace from being realised,” said the report and was prepared at the request of the Commission to support its deliberations.

Authored by Will Green, a Policy Analyst on the Security and Foreign Affairs Team at the Commission, the report says that the Chinese government is particularly fearful of India’s growing relationship with the United States and its allies and partners.

“The latest border clash is part of a broader pattern in which Beijing seeks to warn New Delhi against aligning with Washington,” it said.

After Xi assumed power in 2012, there was a significant increase in clashes, despite the fact that he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi several times and Beijing and New Delhi have agreed to a series of confidence-building mechanisms designed to mitigate tensions.

Prior to 2013, the last major border clash was in 1987. The 1950s and 1960s were a particularly tense period, culminating in 1962 with a war that left thousands of soldiers dead on both sides, according to the records of China's People's Liberation Army, the report said.

“The 2020 skirmish is in line with Beijing’s increasingly assertive foreign policy. The clash came as Beijing was aggressively pressing its other expansive sovereignty claims in the Indo-Pacific region, such as over Taiwan and in the South and East China seas,” it said.

China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Beijing has built up and militarised many of the islands and reefs it controls in the region. Both areas are stated to be rich in minerals, oil and other natural resources and are vital to global trade.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims over the area.

Several weeks before the clash in the Galwan Valley, Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe called on Beijing to “use fighting to promote stability” as the country’s external security environment worsened, a potential indication of China’s intent to proactively initiate military tensions with its neighbours to project an image of strength, the report said.

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