Innholdsfortegnelse for May 4, 2020 i India Today

Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari is again in the crosshairs of the coalition government in Maharashtra, this time for sitting on a cabinet recommendation to nominate Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray as member of the legislative council. Only last month, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar had claimed that Koshyari was running a ‘parallel government’. The cabinet wants an MLC seat for Thackeray from the governor’s quota. Koshyari is reportedly checking the legality of this recommendation. Thackeray has until May 28 to become an MLC to continue as chief minister. Koshyari, it appears, wants to make him sweat a little. SPENT FORCE? West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee  has asked the state administration to ‘make use’ of the Banga Janani Brigade, an outfit of the ruling Trinamool Congress, to protect doctors, nurses…

The untimely rains and delayed winter prolonged the wait for Baljinder Singh to harvest his crop. He needed bright sunshine for at least a week to clear the moisture and harvest the wheat. The family has a land parcel of about 42 acres and he is expecting a yield of 22-24 quintals an acre. Baljinder has two more worries, the lack of migrant labour and the complex coupon-based procurement. Punjab has put in place a staggered marketing plan and farmers can bring only one tractor trolley at a time. The arthiyas (commission agents) can issue only 5 curfew passes a day for these trolleys. Each trolley can ferry 50-52 quintals of wheat in one trip. This is enough for small and marginal farmers (the large majority in the state with…

Industries: Small scale units of leather, garments, pottery and plastic recycling $1 billion (RS 7,600 crore) Annual estimated turnover 5,000 No. of industries 15,000 Single-room factories 800,000 People living in a 2.1 sq. km. area. About 30% of the population is Muslim, 6% Christian and the remaining 63% Hindu. There is a sprinkling of Buddhists and other minority religions too 189 No. of COVID-19 cases so far 3,500 Tests done so far 12 No. of deaths…

COVID-19 disproportionately kills older people. In India, reports show, about 75 per cent of those who have died (543 at the time of writing) were over 60 years of age, and 42 per cent were 75 and older. Significantly, over 83 per cent of those who have died, suffered from the likes of diabetes, cardiac diseases and high blood pressure. In New York City, the most severely affected city in the US, the country with the most COVID-19 infections and deaths in the world, just 0.04 per cent of those who have died are under 18 years old. None of this is to say children cannot die of the virus. On April 18, a 45-day-old infant succumbed to COVID-19 at Delhi’s Lady Hardinge Medical College and dozens of children in…

Your child has worked hard to get admission into her dream college. She has the offer letter, and now it’s time to arrange funds. But what if you are a bit short? You will have to explore education loans or hunt for grants and scholarships. The government has simplified the process with dedicated online portalsvidyalakshmi.com for education loans and vidyasaarathi.com and scholarships.gov.in for scholarships. Let’s look at the details: HOW TO APPLY FOR A LOAN The NSDL (National Securities Depository Ltd) e- Governance Infrastructure, under the guidance of the department of financial services (DFS), department of higher education and the Indian Banks Association (IBA), has developed a common portal, Vidyalakshmi. The DFS guidelines say that all education loans must be routed through this portal. After you sign up and fill…

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE (2014) After breaking the conventions of cinema in Breathless, Jean-Luc Godard was still redefining cinema half a century later. In this film, he used 3D in a way never used before. I, DANIEL BLAKE (2016) A Ken Loach film about ordinary people falling through the cracks of a bureaucratic system, about inequality and social injustice. THE SALESMAN (2016) In this beautifully acted play within a play set in Iran, Asghar Farhadi explores the complexities of relationships and male patriarchy. NO HOME MOVIE (2015) The title says it all. The Chantal Akerman film is an intimate video essay, recording conversations between the filmmaker and her mother on Skype, in her kitchen, sometimes on her phone. Yet the film beautifully uses the “home movie” format…

On April 20, the standoff between the Centre and the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government, over its implementation of the national lockdown, reached snapping point when two inter-ministerial central teams (IMCTs) arrived in the state for a review at the behest of the ministry of home affairs (MHA). They had come at very short notice—West Bengal chief secretary Rajiva Sinha was reportedly informed an hour before they landed, and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee received an official call from the MHA after the fact. Predictably, the IMCTs received a chilly welcome, with state officials allegedly refusing to cooperate at first. The two administrations have been steadily upping the ante since end-March or even earlier, with the Mamata Banerjee government seemingly going out of its way to sidestep or flout central decrees…

Baisakhi, that annual festival of hope and regeneration, was to have been extra special this April 13. It was a day before the prime minister was due to announce that he would lift the lockdown that had pulled the shutters down on an entire country and its economy. Winter rainfall and an extended cold spell had delayed the harvest of an expected bumper rabi crop; all that was needed for it to resume was the end of the 21-day lockdown. As it turned out, the lockdown was extended by another 19 days. As it pushed people and businesses deeper into despair, agriculture suddenly became the only hope for the country, to resuscitate its stalled economy and infuse demand in the system. With encouraging minimum support prices (MSP) and a good…

Takhr had sown black mustard and wheat on his 3 hectare land near Gang Canal, 35 km from the India-Pakistan border. The wheat he harvested using a combine harvester, but the black mustard he had to harvest himself because the lock-down affected labour supply. The yield has been good this year, but expenses too have risen. Diesel tariffs have been revised by Rs 6 in the past two weeks, increasing his expenses. Takhr is expecting to earn Rs 1.25 lakh this season, expenses included. Procurement in his area will begin on May 3. Medium-sized landowners like Takhr get little help from the state. They are forced to approach traders for loans on personal expenses such as marriages and are compelled to sell their produce to these traders because they find…

Recently Indian Stock Market faced a huge crash in the month of March 2020. This crash which was huge, has fallen down nearly 40% from life high. Another massive crash has started now which is going to be very very big. In this crash NIFTY will fall down minimum 5000 level which is nearly 46% from the recent level. This crash will be registered as the 3rd biggest crash in the INDIAN STOCK MARKET history. This crash will erode major portion of investors and traders wealth of INDIAN STOCK MARKET. Therefore investors and traders needs to be cautious in the market and be prepared to deal with the fall said by the RESEARCH ANALYST Mr. LAKSHMI NARAYANAN SUNDARAM.…

Between January and March this year, a team of doctors at China’s Third People’s Hospital of Shenzhen performed convalescent blood plasma transfusion on five critically ill COVID-19 patients suffering from acute respiratory distress. With guarded optimism, the team spent the next few weeks studying the after-effects on the patients. To their delight, and the global medical fraternity’s interest, the results offered hope. Within 10 days of receiving plasma harvested from individuals previously cured of COVID-19, three of the five patients saw their condition improve and the viral load reduce. They were eventually discharged. It’s still early days, but medical experts believe the Chinese experience has demonstrated that convalescent blood plasma therapy can help patients develop critical antibodies against COVID-19 which, as of April 22, had globally infected 2,585,193 people (19,818…

Praveen Sharma, 26, (name changed on request) remembers his 57-year-old father’s last wish. It was to shave off his stubble. “My father was always clean shaven,” says Sharma from a quarantine centre in Howrah where he has been with his mother and sister since April 12. “He kept running his fingers through it and whispered that it was itchy. I had promised to shave it off once he returned from the hospital.” It wasn’t to be. Sharma’s father died of COVID-19 on April 14. He doesn’t know where his father was cremated. “My uncle and cousins were called to clear off the bills and from a distance they watched a couple of men in PPE (personal protective equipment) take the plastic-wrapped body away,” he says. “I don’t even know if…

MAD MAX Inspired by the movie series, this game stays true to its source material—gorgeous wastelands peppered with inspiring combat and lots and lots of cars. You, of course, play Max, and your life has recently been spared by a warlord because he thinks you are a prophet who will bring about the existence of an ultimate vehicle called Magnum Opus. You start from scratch, gathering parts for the car, protection and gear for yourself, all while building your legend by taking down bases and roaming patrols of the other factions. The ultimate goal is to control the entire wasteland. If you like the movies, there is a good chance you will love this post-apocalyptic world as well. Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 Price: Starts at Rs 1,099 STATE…

On April 5, Keran village in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district on the Line of Control (LoC) saw an intense close combat between a squad of the army’s special forces and five newly infiltrated militants. The massive, five-day search operation, which began on April 1 in adverse snowbound conditions, culminated in a reported death toll of 10—five on each side. THE VALLEY IS WITNESSING A SPIKE IN MILITANT ATTACKS AND ALARM OVER NEW DOMICILE RULES The Keran gun battle is the fiercest the Valley has witnessed this year and points to Pakistan sending in highly trained militants as snow begins to melt on the high-altitude mountains. The infiltrators were owned up as its members by ‘The Resistance Front’ (TRF), a militant outfit that the Jammu and Kashmir police say emerged only…

A medium-sized farmer in Mokamataal, Murari faces a curious dilemma. His harvest of wheat and dalhan (pulses) is ready, but he wants to sell the wheat to the government, which is offering an MSP of Rs 1,925 per quintal, and the masoor dal in the open market as the rate there is higher than the MSP. “I want logistics support from the state to sell the dalhan. Also, the Primary Agriculture Cooperative Society (PACS), which procures wheat from the panchayats, is playing truant,” he says. Bihar cooperative minister Rana Randhir Singh says the farmers have to register with the PACS. “The 8,000-plus PACS in the state will ensure every grain of wheat the farmers sell is purchased. Procurement will continue till July 15,” he says. The lockdown has also forced…

Dharmesh Kachiwala, 48, who runs a textile processing unit in Surat, is distraught as the national lockdown nears the one-month mark. Although the new guidelines from the Centre, announced on April 15, allow industrial units outside the COVID-19 ‘hotspots’ in Gujarat (such as in textile hub Surat) to resume operations from April 20, entrepreneurs like him aren’t taking any chances. “Surat’s textile trading market is closed, so where will we sell our products, even if we make them?” he asks. His firm, J.P. Kachiwala Textiles, supplies processed cloth to garment makers, who in turn export finished garments to larger firms such as British retailer Marks & Spencer. But even those businesses are now shut. “Once you start your plant, you have to keep operations going 24x7, else it becomes an…

ANTIVIRALS How they work The COVID-19 virus is a double-stranded RNA virus with 29 proteins An RNA-dependent RNA Polymerase protein is unique to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19; it is not present in humans Most antivirals are targeting to inhibit this protein, which would prevent the virus from replicating Some also target M Protease, a specific protein that cuts host cell proteins for the virus to digest Toxicity and efficacy are important parameters for drugs to ensure that they do not harm essential cells in human beings instead Drugs being tested REMDESIVIR Approved for: Previously tested in humans for Ebola, but yet to be approved or licensed for it Trials for COVID: Gilead has initiated two randomised human trials. Results about safety and efficacy of the drug expected by May…

On the evening of April 13, a diabetic, 40-year-old man was admitted to Ariston Multispeciality Hospital in Delhi’s Chittaranjan Park. “He had ketones in his urine and since he was running a slight fever, we tested him for COVID-19,” says general physician and hospital board member Dr Ish Kathpalia, who has been treating the patient for 15 years. Three days later, Dr Kathpalia received the results of the patient’s COVID-19 test. He had tested positive for the virus. The patient has been shifted to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital and Dr Kathpalia, his family and the Ariston staff, are all in quarantine. The hospital shutting down has been a huge blow for the residents of the neighbourhood who depend on it for emergency care. “The impact on residential clinics…

For Kamilini*, the lockdown put in place to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, could not have come at a worst time. Trapped in an abusive marriage for almost 10 years, she had finally mustered the courage to set up a meeting with a lawyer to begin divorce proceedings. She had also lined up a job as women’s hostel superintendent on the outskirts of Kolkata. She could almost taste the freedom. But then the world, along with her carefully laid out plans, came to a standstill because of the coronavirus pandemic. To make matters worse, her husband found out about her plans and what followed next was emotional and physical torture. He even threatened to kill her if she ever dared to open her mouth. With her mobile phone confiscated and…

Withdrawing one’s EPF (Employee’s Provident Fund) balance has hitherto been a tedious task. You need to fill several forms, arrange documents, visit the EPF office (EPFO) and follow up continuously. Not any more. The entire process is now online, which enables you to apply for EPF withdrawal from the comfort of your home. The proceeds are credited directly into your bank account. There are a few things, though, that you need to keep in mind. TIMING OF WITHDRAWAL Changes in rules since 2016 have reduced the time an individual has to wait for after leaving employment to withdraw EPF balance. “If an EPF subscriber has been unemployed for over a month, they can withdraw up to 75 per cent of the EPF corpus and have the remaining 25 per cent…