40 militant groups were operating in Pakistan: Imran Khan

London, Feb 14: Five years ago Britain’s new finance minister Rishi Sunak wasn’t even a member of parliament and now he is running the world's fifth largest economy.

The 39-year-old former Goldman Sachs banker was appointed in dramatic fashion on Thursday when incumbent Sajid Javid unexpectedly quit — in a row over advisers — during what Downing Street had cast as a routine ministerial reshuffle.

Sunak is married to the daughter of Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy, and was hand-picked to take over an ultra-safe seat in northern England, previously represented by former Conservative Party leader William Hague. The Murthy family was not reachable for comment.

In July, when he was promoted chief secretary to the Treasury, Murthy had said: “Our advice to our children, including Rishi, has been to work hard, be honest, and do good for society…We wish him well.”

After Thursday’s announcement, Sunak said: “Delighted to be appointed... Lots to get on with.”

Tipped for Promotion

As Boris Johnson moves to increase control of the finance ministry, one of the youngest chancellors in history will face a prime minister who wants to increase government spending on everything from infrastructure and police to health and education.

Sunak, seen as a rising star in the ruling Conservative Party since he entered Parliament in 2015, had been tipped for promotion to a senior post in the ministerial rejig as Johnson put together his post-Brexit cabinet.

But, despite an already rapid ascent through the ranks of government, few expected the Oxford University Politics, Philosophy and Economics graduate to ascend to one of the highest offices in the land.

Sunak had been serving as Javid’s deputy in the finance ministry since Johnson promoted him upon taking office in July 2019. Prior to that he had served as a junior housing minister.

“From working in my mum’s tiny chemist shop to my experience building large businesses, I have seen first-hand how politicians should support free enterprise and innovation to ensure our future prosperity,” Sunak says on his website.

Smooth and loyal

Seen as a smooth media performer and ultra-loyal member of the Conservative Party, Sunak has been used by the government to present and defend their policies in television interviews — a sign of trust from Johnson, who has a fraught relationship with Britain’s media.

Sunak takes control at a critical juncture for Britain’s $2.7 trillion economy. He will have to steer the economy through the turbulence of leaving the European Union and the forging of new trade links that will define Britain’s new relationship with the world.

However, the power struggle that forced his predecessor Javid to quit hints at a more diminished role for what is the second most powerful position in the government — with Johnson’s office wanting to centralise control and minimise dissent.

Sunak is one of the three ministers of Indian origin in Johnson’s cabinet, the other two being Priti Patel and Alok Sharma. Patel remains the interior minister after the cabinet reshuffle while Sharma, a former minister for international development, was appointed the new minister for business. Sunak’s father was a doctor and his mother ran a chemist shop. Before entering politics he worked for Goldman Sachs and a hedge fund, then co-founded an investment firm. He also has an MBA from Stanford University.

Moscow, Jun 27: The number of people who have contracted the coronavirus infection in Russia has increased by 6,852 over the past day to a total of 627,646, the country's COVID-19 Response Center said in a daily update on Saturday.

"Over the past day, 6,852 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed in 85 regions of Russia, including 2,058, or 30 per cent, of asymptomatic cases," the response centre said.

Of the total 6,852 newly detected cases, 750 have been confirmed in Moscow, 366 in Moscow Region, and 280 in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area, according to the report.

The reported daily dynamics included 188 new fatalities, which brought the cumulative death toll to 8,969.

Total recoveries now count 393,352, an increase of 9,200 over the past day, including 1,852 in Moscow, 1,421 in Moscow Region and 716 in St. Petersburg.

Dubai, May 7: As India begins the world’s largest evacuation mission by repatriating its overseas citizens stranded due to COVID-19, as many as 354 of them from the UAE will fly into their home country in the first two flights to Kerala today.

An Air India Express flight, which is scheduled to take off from Abu Dhabi to Kochi at 4.15 pm is the first flight, which will be followed by a Dubai-Kozhikode flight of the same airline at 5.10pm. The Indian missions in the UAE finalised the list of passengers, who were chosen based on the compelling reasons they submitted while registering their names.

Selection criteria

These include pregnant women and their accompanying family members in some instances, people with medical emergencies, workers and housemaids in distress, families with cancelled visas, bereaved family members who couldn’t attend funerals back home, a few students and stranded visitors and tourists including two brothers who got stranded in Dubai International Airport for 50 days, the missions said.

Short-listing the first passengers from among a database of more than 200,000 applicants, who include around 6,500 pregnant women, has been a mammoth task which posed several challenges for the missions, Neeraj Agrawal, Consul Press, Information and Culture at the Indian Consulate in Dubai told Gulf News.

He said the consulate set up an operations room in a tie-up with community volunteers from Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre, Indian Association Ajman, AKCAF Task Force, the BAPS Mandir, Indian People’s Forum, and Tamil Ladies’ Sangam.

 “We are trying to accommodate as many deserving people as possible. We expect the understanding of the people. It has been very difficult to sort out everyone’s urgency.”

“We cannot do a lottery system in this and we had to make sub- categories to ensure there is a mix of people with different types of urgencies.”

“Though we want to give priority to pregnant women, it is practically not possible and not good for the health and safety of the applicants to allot a lot of them on the same flight.”

He said 11 pregnant women have been issued tickets on the Dubai-Kozhikode flight.

“That is the threshold we can allow on a flight.”

Volunteer support

The consul appreciated the support of the volunteers in finalising the flight manifest.

“But our response ratio was very less. Many people whose names came up on top of the list were not willing to go on the first flights.”

Due to various constraints like this and sometimes the details of accompanying persons not readily being available, he said the mission was not able to quickly reach out to who might be really in need.

“However, we have given due consideration to people who got in touch with us with their emergency needs. At the time of issuing tickets, we had about 20 such cases.”

He said the Consul General of India in Dubai Vipul led the entire operation and Pankaj Bodkhe, consul, education, was in charge of the Dubai flight.

A big challenge

“It has been a big challenge. Our only concern is that despite our best efforts, sometimes people with more compelling reasons might have got left out on the first flights because of the volume of people who have reached out to us.”

Since there is a chance that some passengers with tickets might not be allowed to fly if they fail the medical screening including blood tests to check antibodies for COVID-19, he said some applicants in the waiting list have been asked to be on standby at the airport.

People with emergencies wishing to fly to other destinations also could not be included, he pointed out.

“We had to ask them to wait. We are unable to send them to other destinations. We can see their desperation. We feel sorry and desperate.”

He said the government is trying to add more flights to un-chartered destinations and a new flight from Dubai to Kannur has been added on May 12.

Passengers of today’s flights have been urged to reach the airport four to five hours prior to departure to facilitate the medical screening.