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Nurses vow not to go back to Iraq

July 5, 2014

Kochi, July 5: After about a month's long ordeal in the strife torn Iraq, 46 Indian nurses returned to their homeland today with most of them vowing not to go back risking their lives.nurses

"We will not go back. There is no question of going back. We are not prepared to endanger our lives once again", said Sandra Sebastian, who arrived at the Kochi airport along with 45 other nurses to a warm and emotional welcome from Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and their relatives.

Sandra, hailing from neighbouring Kottayam district, said she had gone to Iraq on August 16 last year. Since the past four months she along with other nurses have not received salaries from the Government Tikrit Training Hospital where they were working.

"Earlier, we were a batch of 23 nurses and then 15 more joined us in February this year" she said.

On being held captive by ISIS militants, Sandra and Neenu Jose, another nurse, said though they had been asked to move out earlier, they refused to do so as the Indian Embassy had not given them permission to do so, she said.

However, on July 3, they were given only 15 minutes time to pack their bag and leave by the militants.

"They told us that you are all our our sisters. You would not be harmed. But we did not believe them", Sandra said, adding, some armed doctors also travelled with them during the seven hours journey from from Tikrit to Mosul. They left the hospital at 12 pm in four buses and reached Mosul by 7 PM.

"They were given food and bed to sleep on," Neenu said. Suni Mol Chacko from Kannur said "they cannot be called terrorists. They are part of the local government".

The families of all the nurses, who had come in large numbers to receive their daughters, were moist eyed as they hugged and kissed them.

Elanji Balakrishnan from Ernakulam, said his daughter, Renu had gone to Iraq in August last year. The family had to take Rs 2 lakh loan to send her and she had not received salary for the past three months, he said.

"I had to mortgage 48 cents of land and my house to send my daughter to Iraq", the frail Balakrishnan said.

All the nurses and their families thanked Chandy and Central government for all the help in ensuring their safe return to India.

Of the 46 nurses, 45 hail from various districts of Kerala and one belongs to Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu. They said the militants treated them well.

Mareena from Kottayam was all in tears as she hugged and kissed her two-year-old daughter Reya and son Merin, whom she was meeting after 11 months. She said they were well looked after by the ISIS and had no complaints.

Shantamma, mother of Shalini, said her daughter had gone to Tikrit five months ago after taking Rs 5 lakh loan. The family is worried.

Chandy who arrived here late last night, received the nurses at the airport and the airport authorities ensured speedy completion of emigration and customs formalities.

Media personnel had a tough time as they were not allowed anywhere inside the International arrival lounge.

Airport sources said besides Chandy, Health minister V S Shivakumar, PWD minister Irabhim Kunju, Chalakudy MP and Malayalam actor Innocent and Kottayam MP Jose K Mani were present at the airport.

Though most of them looked travel weary, there were tears of joy as they spotted their near and dear ones.

As soon as they saw Chandy, they said 'Thank You', 'Thank You'.

NORKA (Non Resident Keralites Association) officials had put up two counters to provide all help to the nurses. The nurses were given Rs 5000 each and offered free taxies to reach their homes.

Children from Janseva Shishu Bhavan, holding placards 'Stop War', politicians cutting across parties, and members of Nursing Associations were seen at the airport to welcome the nurses.

Seventeen of the nurses are from Kottayam district, 7 each from Kannur and Idukki districts and rest belong to other parts of the state.

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Agencies
August 3,2020

Rajouri, Aug 3: Ashfaq Mehmood Choudhary, a 17-year-old boy from Chattyear of Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, has developed a file-sharing app 'Dodo Drop' which would enable users to share audios, videos, images, and texts between two devices without Internet access.

While speaking to media persons, Ashfaq Mehmood said that the 'Dodo Drop' application is an alternative to the Chinese 'SHAREit' app. "The Indian government has banned several Chinese apps due to data breaching, and among those apps was SHAREit which was used for sharing files.

Users faced a lot of problems due to the ban, and so I decided to make this file-sharing app. With 'Dodo Drop', users can share audios, videos, images, and even texts," he said.

Ashfaq said that it took him four weeks to develop the application, and it was launched on August 1 this year. The 'Dodo Drop' application has a transfer rate of up to 480 mbps, which is faster than the SHAREit app and is "quite easy" to use.

"Users can transfer data comprising photos, videos, audios, apps, texts, etc. between two devices with no Internet access. The transfers are fully encrypted and secure," he added.

"Our Prime Minister has always asserted the need for decreasing the dependency on foreign products and apps and to focus on the development of India-based apps. I tried to be part of the initiative of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' by developing an India-based file-sharing app. I want to develop global-standard apps for India," he added.

"We support and cooperate with him. He generates his own income by working on some projects and utilises it. We will continue to support him," said Parvez Ahmed Choudhary, Ashfaq's father.

In July, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) banned 47 apps, which were variants and cloned copies of the 59 apps banned earlier in June. These banned clones included SHAREit Lite, Tiktok Lite, Helo Lite, BIGO LIVE Lite, and VFY Lite.

The 59 apps had been banned by the Centre in June in view of the information available that they were engaged in activities which were "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity and defence" of the country.

Almost all the apps banned had some preferential Chinese interest and the majority had parent Chinese companies.

The ban came amid border tensions with China in the Eastern Ladakh region.

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News Network
February 28,2020

Feb 28: The best economic tonic for the coronavirus shock is to contain its spread and worry about stimulus later, said Raghuram Rajan, former head of the Reserve Bank of India.

There’s little central banks can do, and while more government spending would help, the priority should be on convincing companies and households that the virus is under control, he said.

“People want to have a sense that there is a limit to the spread of this virus perhaps because of containment measures or because there is hope that some kind of viral solution can be found,” Rajan told Bloomberg Television’s Haidi Stroud Watts and Shery Ahn.

“At this point I would say the best thing that governments can do is to really fight the epidemic rather than worry about stimulus measures that comes later,” said Rajan, who is currently a professor at the Chicago Booth School of Business.

The spread of coronavirus is pushing the world economy toward its worst performance since the financial crisis more than a decade ago.

Bank of America Corp. economists warned clients Thursday that they now expect 2.8% global growth this year, the weakest since 2009.

“We have moved from extreme confidence in markets to extreme panic, all in the space of one week,” said Rajan, who previously was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

The virus outbreak will force companies to rethink supply chains and overseas production facilities, he said.

“I think we will see a lot of rethinking on this, coming on the back of the trade disruption, now we have this,” Rajan said. “Globalization in production is going to be hit quite badly.”

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News Network
May 7,2020

Visakhapatnam, May 7: Unconscious children being carried by parents in their arms, people laying on roads, health workers scrambling to attend to those affected by the styrene vapour leak and residents fleeing were some of the scenes that played out near here on Thursday, bringing back grim memories of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.

The leak of styrene, a chemical used to make synthetic rubber and resins, among others, occurred in the wee hours of Thursday while people were still fast asleep.

Women and children were seen lying on roads struggling to breath, reminiscent of the infamous Bhopal gas tragedy when a leak from the Union Carbide plant left around 3,500 dead and many maimed.

The worst-hit Gopalapatnam village reverberated with cries of people for help.

Many people fell unconscious during their sleep, a villager said.

Affected people, suffering writ large on their faces, were rushed to hospitals in autorickshaws and on two wheelers.

Visakhapatnam Collector Vinay Chand said 20 ambulances were pressed into service as soon information about the gas leak was received.

Exposure to styrene, also known as ethenylbenzene, vinylbenzene can affect the central nervous system (CNS), causing headache, fatigue, weakness, and depression.

It is primarily used in the production of polystyrene plastics and resins.

The gas leak took place at LG Polymers chemical plant.

LG Polymers was established in 1961 as "Hindustan Polymers" for manufacturing Polystyrene and its co-polymers at Visakhapatnam. It merged with McDowell & Co. Ltd of UB Group in 1978, according to the company's website.

Taken over by LG Chem (South Korea), Hindustan Polymers was renamed LG Polymers India Private Limited (LGPI) in July, 1997.

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