Rape convict godman has been receiving favours from BJP govt

Kolkata, Jan 28: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee Tuesday said she is ready for talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue of Citizenship Amendment Act but the Centre has to first withdraw the contentious law.

Banerjee said protesting against the decisions of the centre doesn't make opposition parties anti-national and iterated that she will not implement CAA, NRC or NPR in the state.

"It is good that the prime minister is ready for talks but the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) must be revoked first. They (Centre) did not call an all-party meeting before taking a decision on Kashmir and CAA.

"We are ready for talks but first withdraw this Citizenship Amendment Act," Banerjee, a staunch critic of the BJP, said addressing a protest programme against CAA through paintings.

The West Bengal assembly had on Monday passed a resolution against the CAA to become the fourth state after Kerala, Punjab and Rajasthan, to do so. The state assembly had on September 6, 2019, passed a resolution against the NRC.

Mumbai, Mar 29: Virologist Minal Dakhave Bhosale led from the front to create India's first coronavirus testing kit even when she was in the last stage of her pregnancy.

Bhosale's efforts paid the price with her team delivering the testing kit in a record time of six weeks.

Bhosale gave birth to a baby girl just a day before submitting the kit to the authorities for evaluation.

"It was like giving birth to two babies," Bhosale told PTI over the phone.

The virologist said both the journeys - that happened in parallel - were not without challenges.

"There were complications in the pregnancy while work on the test kit was on. The baby was delivered through cesarean," she said.

Bhosale said she felt that it was the right time to serve the people to help them in combating the coronavirus threat.

"I had been working for five years in this field and if I don't work in emergency situations when my services are needed the most, then what is the use?" she said.

Though Bhosale was not able to visit the office due to the pregnancy, she was guiding a team of 10 persons working on the project at Mylab Discovery in Pune.

The strong bonds forged with the team over the years and their support made it possible, she said.

Company's co-founder Shrikant Patole said just like drug discovery, test kits too go through a lot of quality checks to improve the precision.

He credited Bhosale for the success of the project.

The COVID-19 testing kit delivered by Bhosale's team will reduce the time taken for delivering a result to 2.5 hours from the prevalent practice of eight hours.

A pioneering approach to testing without compromising on the results was adopted, Bhosale said.

The Maylab test kit will cost Rs1,200, a quarter of Rs 4,500 per kit that the government has been spending on testing so far.

"I'm happy that I could do something for the country," Bhosale said.

As of Friday, only 27,000 of the 1.3 billion people were tested for the virus in the country.

According to experts, high scale testing is essential because it alone can ensure an early diagnosis of COVID-19 and lower down the fatalities.

The company is confident of ramping up the capacity at its plant in Lonavala to deliver 100,000 kits a week, Patole said.

He said the authorities are helping the company, including giving priority for shipping of the raw materials.

Puducherry, Jan 5: Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi, a former IPS officer, became the butt of Twitterati jokes on Saturday after she tweeted that NASA recording of the sound of the sun was in fact 'Om' chant. She wrote at @thekiranbedi: "NASA recorded sound of the sun -- Sun chants Om."

pic.twitter.com/ArRwljjDVE

— Kiran Bedi (@thekiranbedi) January 4, 2020

The post got 5.6K retweets and 17.7K likes, and as many as 472.6K views.

One user remarked: "Wrong. The Sun said NaMo NaMo. You should've checked the UNESCO version along with the NASA version."

A post read: "And we thought you were intelligent."

One user posted a picture of Kiran Bedi with Sadhguru Jaggi who was trolled a few days ago after he posted his support on the Citizenship Amendment Act. He commented: "This picture can be provided."

A Twitter user reminded the former bureaucrat about the Indian Constitution's Fundamental Duties (Article 51A) that says that it shall be the duty of every citizens of India to develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.

Another wondered aloud: "We don't know how you cleared the Civil Services exams. We are ashamed...."

A user posted a clip of a well known stand-up comic who talked about the celestial hum which many claim to be Om chant.

A post read: "I consider this tweet by you as one of the best jokes of the millennium. The saffron brigade is successful in brainwashing learned people like you."
One user commented: "Once upon a time this lady was a hero to many. What a disgrace now!"