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Devotees might soon be able topray at major temples in thestate without stepping into one.

The Muzrai department is planningto take puja online as some of theprominent temples across the statehave lost more than Rs 100 crore inrevenue due to the virus-inducedlockdown.

Normally, March and May are peakseason for temples in the state asthese three months form the holidayseason. Unfortunately, no bells areringing either in Kukke Subrahmanyaor at Kollur Mookambika — twwt o of themost-visited temples in the state. Thesituation is similar at others due to therestrictions.

The drop in revenue is a big loss forthe state government.

Data from the Muzrai Departmentshows that 200 temples in ‘A’ catego-ry (having revenue of more than Rs25 lakh) raked in about Rs 113 crorebetwwt een March and May of 2019.

With temples falling silent due tothe lockdown, the department has

now decided to make arrangements intemples for online puja and delivery ofprasadam through post.

“This service will be operationalby end of this month,” said a seniorofficial of the department.

“We are preparing a list of temples.Once it is finalised, the same will beuploaded on the department website.Devotees who wish to avail online pujacan pay the prescribed amount online.Temple authorities will arrange for ane-darshan and pooja. Prasadam will besent through postal service.”

Temples have been categorisedinto A, B and C based on the revenuethey generate. Those with revenueof more than Rs 25 lakh fall underthe A category. These include KukkeSubrahmanya, Kollur Mookambikaand Chamundeshwari temples.

Devotiontogodigitalatrevenue-hittemplesONLINE PUJA

RASHMI BELURBENGALURU, DHNS

There seems to be no endto migrants’ misery asmore than 50 of them

from Bihar and Uttar Pradeshwere not only cheated of theirearnings of Rs 1.36 lakh by atruck driver who promised totake them home but were alsobeaten up by the police andmade to walk back towards

Bengaluru.The incident happened at 3

am on Wednesday when thetruck driver told the 56 labour-ers to get off the truck 20 km

from the Andhra Pradesh bor-der and cross over on foot andwait for him, saying there werechecks at the Andhra Pradeshborder post.

“When we reached the bor-der, the police stopped us andbeat some of us for trying tocross the border,” RajenderPrasad, a labourer from Bihar,told DH.

Alibaba, president of Rash-tra Seva Dala’s state unit, saidhe noticed the migrants walk-ing towards Gauribidanurfrom Andhra. “It was alreadylate afternoon and they hadn’teaten since morning. Six ofthemwerebeatenupbadly.Weprovided them food but theyjust wanted to go back home.With the help of local police,we arranged a KSRTC bus andsent them back to Bengaluru,”he said.► Migrant labour, Page 5

Trucker flees with migrant cashLabourerspromisedtriphome,walkback

fromAPborder▼▼▼

CHIRANJEEVI KULKARNIBENGALURU, DHNS

COVID TESTING AND BURDEN IN TOP-10 STATESDelhi leads in test-

population ratio and in caseincidence, with highest

cases/million

However, Maharashtraleads in terms of ratio of

cases to tests, followed byGujarat and Delhi

Karnataka andAndhra Pradesh

have lowestcases/1,000 tests

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At least 72 people havedied and thousands lefthhhA omeless in West Ben-

gal due to cyclone Amphan,which barrelled into the east-ern state with 185 kmph windson Wednesday, leaving a trailof destruction.

“As of now, we have receivedinformation that 72 peoplehave died in Bengal due to Am-phan. The districts of Northand South 24 Paraganas arethe worst affected and totallydevastated,” said Chief Min-ister Mamata Banerjee aboutthe impact of Amphan.

So far, South 24 Paraganasdistrict has recorded the high-est number of fatalities with18 deaths followed by North24 Paraganas with 17 andstate capital Kolkata with 15deaths. Seven people have diedin Howrah district, sixxxi in Nadiaand twwwt o in Hooghly district.

The rural areas of the statewere devastated. Mud huts

were flllf attened by the stormand uprooted rooftops strewnin villages.

Storm havocKolkata took a severe hit fromthe storm, which swept acrossthe cityyyt with 110 kmph winds,snapping power lines and up-rooting trees.

Several areas of the cityyyt arewithout power since Wednes-day night and mobile com-munication has been severelydisrupted.

The Kolkata airport suf-fered considerable damageas window panes in the ter-

minals shattered due to howl-ing winds and hangars be-came heavily waterlogged.

Coastal districts such asNorth and South 24 Paraganasand East and West Medinipuralong with large parts of Sun-darbans bore the brunt of thecyclone.

Embankments breached inseveral areas across North andSouth 24 Paraganas. Thou-sands of kucha houses andpaddy fields were destroyed.

The true extent of the dam-age hasn’t been determinedyet as several areas have beencut off.

At least 72 kiiik lled asAmphan batters Bengal

SOUMYA DASKOLKATA, DHNS

An aircraft is seen amid a collapsed hangar at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose InternationalAirport after cyclone Amphan made landfall in Kolkata on Thursday. AFP

CMMamataBanerjeesaystwodistricts

‘totallydevastated’;15deadinKolkata

▼▼▼

Karnataka reports 143 new viruscases, 97 of them from Maha

Number of Covid patientsneeding hospital care jumps

BENGALURU, DHNS: Karna-taka added 143 more Cov-id-19 cases on Thursday, withpatients from Maharashtracontributing97 of the newinfections.

The high-est numbero f c a s e scame fromMandya, which saw 33 newcases, while Udupi followedclose behind with 28. Hassansaw 13 cases, all from Maha-rashtra, while the source of

Ballari’s 11 new cases is Mum-bai. Bengaluru saw eightcases.

Dr K Sudhakar, Covid-19i n - c h a r g e ,said, “Weare discuss-ing whetherinstitutionalquarantineisrequired for

people who come from otherstates and abroad.”

With the new additions,the state’s tally has gone up to1,605 cases.

In the last one month, the per-centage of Covid-19 patientsrequiring hospital care hasnearly doubled, demonstrat-ing how the virus affects thevuuuv lnerable more.

On May 20, 3% of active cas-es needed oxyyyx gen support, 3%needed intensive care units,0.45% ventilation. Together,close to 6.5% of all infectedwere seriously sick patientswho required hospital care.

This number was 5% onMay 13, 4.67% on May 9 and3.82% on April 26. So, withmore being tested for the vi-rus, the percentage of peoplerequiring ICU, oxygen andventilators has doubled, showsa back-of-the-envelope calcu-lation of Health Ministry data.

“This suggests the disease isaffecting the elderly and high-risk persons with co-morbid-ities more,” said Giridhara RBabu, professor, Public HealthFoundation of India.► Hospital, Page 5

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KALYAN RAYNEW DELHI, DHNS

DH PODCASTScan the code forour daily pod-cast on Covid-19

Workers show the applications they filed for the migrantspecial train to an activist near Gauribidanur on Wednesday.

Page13

Prasanna turns80, Vishy pens

tribute CCCCCasesssss/1,0000000 tests

Teeeeests/lakhhhhh CCCCCases/mmmmmillion

In India* Bihar girl, who cycled

down 1200kmcarrying father, willbe called for trial bycycling federation

* 1000-fold increase inquantum of Covid-19tests: ICMR

* Nearly 1.5 lakhtickets booked in thefirst two hours fortrains running fromJune 1

* Cases to peak inmid-July if lockdownlifted this month-end:Epidemiologist

Across the globe

* New Zealand PMwants employersto consider four-day work week topromote tourism

* Astra gets $1 bnfrom US to fundcoronavirus vaccine

* Iran: More than 10khealth care workersinfected with virus

* Coronaviruscatastropheunfolding in southYemen: Medicalcharity MSF

COVID UPDATEINDIA

CASES ONTHURSDAY 5,765

DEATHS141Wednesday’s cases: 5,609

Deaths: 132SOURCE: DHNS/PTI

Jubilant canresume opsPharmaceutical firmJubilant Generics, whosestaffers accounted fora majority of Covid-19cases in Nanjangud inMysuru district, willresume manufacturingof drugs after the stategovernment allowed it toresume operations. P5

PM Modi to arrivein Kolkata todayPrime Minister NarendraModi will arrive inKolkata on Friday to visitthe cyclone-affectedareas, the West BengalBJP said on Thursday. ThePrime Minister, who saidhe would leave no stoneunturned in helping thoseaffected by the cyclone,will arrive at the KolkataAirport at 10 am.Related reports, Page 8

Mysuru Zoo toreopen on June 1Sri ChamarajendraZoological Gardens(Mysuru Zoo) is all set toopen for public on June1 after the longest gapof 67 days. The zoo wasclosed for visitors onMarch 25 in the wakeof lockdown due toCovid-19. P4

Revenue at major templesin 2019 (March to May)

l Kukke Subrahmanya Rs 22.79 crl Kollur Mookambika Rs 12.97 crl Kateel Durga Parameshwari

Rs 8.37 crl Chamundeshwari Temple,

Mysuru Rs 7.27 cr

Early arrival, no meals on flight:Govt issues SOPs for air travel

NEW DELHI, DHNS: Air passen-gers have to be prepared to gowithout food for the durationof the flllf ight and “minimise”the use of toilets.

A day after announcingthe resumption of domesticflllf ights, the Civil Aviation Min-istry on Thursday releasedthe standard operating pro-cedures (SOPs) for air travelthat include a cap of airfaresand an advice to pregnantwomen, people with ailmentsand the elderly to avoid trav-el if possible. “On the day ofcommencement, limited op-erations (about 1/3rd) will bepermitted. Further augmen-tation of flllf ights will be done ina calibrated manner.”

The Aarogya Setu app ora self-declaration of goodhealth will be mandatory forpassengers right from thepoint of web or tele check-into entry to the airport. Therewill be no physical check-in atairport counters. People re-siding in containment zoneswill not be allowed to travel.

AiiiA rlines will have to providea safetyyyt kit which will includea mask, hand sanitiser and aface shield to every passenger.

The guidelines allow pas-sengers to carry only onehand baggage and one check-in baggage up to 20 kg. Any

excess luggage will attract anadditional charge.

Passengers will have toreach the airport two hoursbefore the departure of theflllf ightandcompletethecheck-in procedure and baggagedrop at least an hour beforethe flllf ight takes off.

Inside the aircraft, passen-gers should minimise face-to-face interaction, use of toiletsand avoid any non-essentialmovement in the aisles.

PRICE BANDSFIXED

The government hasdecided to set an upperlimit for domesticairfares to avoid asharp spike in ticketprices and a lowerlimit to ensure that theairlines remain viable.

A Delhi-Bengaluruflight will come underprice band five rangingfrom Rs 4,500 toRs 13,000, while aBengaluru-Mumbaijourney will comeunder price band threewith fares ranging fromRs 3,000 to Rs 9,000.Price chart, Page 8

Bengaluru Friday, May 22, 2020 Pages 14 Vol 73 No 142 6

METRO2 DECCANNNA HERAAAR LLLA DFriday

May 22, 2020

In a bid to maintain socialdistancing and hygiene,cabs have decided

to place a partition betwwwt eenthe driver and passengerseat.

Karnataka State TravelOperators’ Association pres-ident Radhakrishna Holla

said they were inspired bythe methods adopted by taxidrivers in Kerala.

“We have held talks withseveral shops. Installinga partition costs about Rs5,000. But it can come downby half if there are bulkorders,” Holla said.

The transport departmentis yet to come up with guide-lines for taxis. Senior officialsin the department said theyare aware of the benefitsof the partition but have tovalidate it before issuing anorder. “As of now, we are onlyadvising the drivers to adopt

the measure. It should notcost too much, especially at

a time when their earning isnil,” an official said.

Tanveer Pasha, presi-dent, Ola, Uber Drivers andOwners Association, said thedrivers are worried peoplemay not book cabs even ifpartitions are placed.

“Besides the partition, weare also planning to installa mechanical disinfectantspraying device in the taxis.The drivers can press a but-ton to disinfect the passengersegment of the car. We hopethe government will expeditepayment of the Rs 5,000aid to the drivers so they canafford such devices,” Pashaadded.

Move inspired bycabs in Kerala

▼▼▼

DriverstoinstalpartitionsincabstocurbCovidspreadSAFETY FIRST

BENGALURU, DHNS

Installing a partition costs about Rs 5,000. Discussions areon whether to use fibreglass or plastic shields. DH FILE

Aweek after municipal of-ficials began the secondpppA hase of random testing

in Padarayanapura to deter-mine the extent of the Covid-19outbreak, they did not revealextensive infestation.

Since the mass testing beganon May 14, the BBMP had used430 of 500 swab kits, but didnot get a positive result.

“This does not necessarilymean there is no infection inthe ward,” a senior BBMP of-ficial said.

Data from the Departmentof Health and Family Welfarehas revealed that there are 61cases as of Thursday eveningin Padarayanapura’s contain-ment zone. This makes up23.6% of the total cases in Ben-galuru. All 11 cases reported in

the ward are known contactsof previously infected people.

Tests in fringe areasAnother official pointed outthat 216 original randomsampling in the beginning ofMay had revealed seven posi-tive cases, as all the tests havebeen conducted at the coreof the containment zone. Butthe second phase of the ran-dom testing has been limitedto people in the fringe areas ofthe containment zone.

Chamarajpet MLA B Z Zam-eer Ahmed Khan clarified thatthe testing had been prioritisedfor pregnant women and sen-

ior citizens. “Ninetyyyt pregnantwomen have been tested sofar and the balance is largelyof senior citizens,”he said. TheMLA could not confirm wheth-er all of them lived in the fring-es of the containment zone.

Dr Manoranjan Hegde,BBMP health officer, westzone, said the testing will soonextend into the inner areasof the containment zone. Hepointed out that the resultsare awaited on 240 of the 430used tests.

About 190 tests have beendone up to Monday, including11 on the first day of the pro-gramme. No tests were done

on Sunday. So far, all the testshave come out negative.

Eighty-six tests were doneon Tuesday, while 39 weredone on Wednesday and 115on Thursday. “Results of thesetests are still pending,” DrHegde said. “But it is likely thatthey are all negative. We wouldbe informed if otherwise.”

The Palike is expected toreceive 500 more test kits onFriday, the health official said.

Khan was hopeful that 150tests could be conducted onFriday. “Among these, over130 will be senior citizensabove the age of 60, whileeight will be pregnant women,”he said.

430 random tests done, but nopositive case in Padarayanapura

Does not meanthere’s no infection,

cautions BBMP▼

AKHIL KADIDALBENGALURU, DHNS

The mass testing, which began on May 14, gave priority topregnant women and senior citizens. DH FILE/PUSHKAR V

Eighhg t frrf esh cassa esreporttr ed across the cityyt

Eight new Covid caseswere reported on Thurs-day, many of which arecontacts of known infectedpeople. Among them arethe wife and son of Patient1208, a man who came tothe state from Chennaiand tested positive onMay 18.

Four of the cases arelinked to the Padarayan-apura cluster and areknown contacts of twopositive cases identifiedon May 8. Contact tracingis still going on for P1495,a 60-year-old man tested

positive on Thursday,which meant that author-ities are not sure how hecontracted the disease.

A 36-year-old manwho also tested positivehas connections to P796,a 60-year-old man withInfllf uenza-Like Illness(ILI). P796 provided afalse address to get himselfadmitted at a Jayanagarprivate clinic. Being at theadvanced stages of thedisease, P796 died on May14, despite being the firstpatient in Karnataka toreceive plasma therapy.

The road to normalityis fraught with multi-ple challenges for the

BMTC, with officials sayingenforcing Covid-19 restric-tions is of primary concernnow rather than achievingthe revenue target.

On Tuesday, the BangaloreMetropolitan Transport Cor-poration (BMTC) resumedoperations with about 2,000buses and saw a revenue ofRs 63 lakh, while facing com-plaints about its costly andcompulsory daily bus passrule.

However, officials said theywere operating with a fine bal-ance and that allowing cashtransactions would disturbthe arrangement.

“We know that reducingthe pass fare will bring morepeople to the buses. We areworking on the modalities forthe same. The daily pass costRs 70 earlier, too. We intro-duced the weekly pass for Rs300 to help the poor peoplewho travel regularly,” said CShikha, managing director,BMTC.

Even before the pandemicstruck, the financial condition

of the city transporter hadworsened due to rising fuelprices and operation costs. Itscumulative losses had crossedRs 800 crore last year.

Shikha noted that the cor-poration was operating underrestrictions of Lockdown 4.0and not focusing on revenue.

“Starting normal opera-tions will not help containthe pandemic, but we will run3,000 buses from Monday on-wards. Our focus at this pointis on social-distancing meas-ures rather than revenue,”she said.

As the number of buseswas increased to 2,500 on

Wednesday, the revenue in-creased to Rs 83 lakh. Thenumbers are far off the markof the Rs 3.5-crore averagedaily revenue clocked duringthe pre-pandemic days.

An official in the opera-tions asked people to refrainfrom unnecessary travel.“People need to show respon-sibility and avoid travellingas much as possible. Driversand conductors are puttingthemselves on the frontline.The essential sector workersand the poor are travellingdue to a lack of other options.Others should avoid the busesfor now,” he said.

Covid curbs: BMTCdaily ridership falls

Essential sector workers and the poor are travelling due toa lack of other options. BMTC says others should avoid the

buses for a while. DH FILE/JANARDHAN B K

BENGALURU, DHNS

Offering only takeawayservices, local jointshave hiked prices to

include parceling chargesand customers, left without achoice, are paying them.

A cup of coffee at a darshinicomes with an additional Rs 2,as many of them charge Rs 14to Rs 16 to include the moneyspent on the parceling mate-rial. While parcel charges arenothing new, they are particu-larly pinching the customersduring the financial crises trig-gered by the pandemic.

Restaurants have alsohiked prices for other dishesanywwwy here between Rs 20 toRs 40. “Offices have resumed

from Monday and no canteenis operating,” said an employ-ee with a private firm in cen-tral Bengaluru. “We have nooption and are dependent onthe nearest hotels, which arecharging extra for takeoutmeals.”

Karnataka Hoteliers’ As-sociation president Chan-drashekar Hebbar said theparceling costs money to therestaurants that are also oper-ating in loss. “We provide thecup and a lid to cover it,” heexplained as a reason for theadditional charge. “This’ll bereversed once we receive per-

mission from the governmentfor dine-in services.”

Friday deadlineThe association had given thegovernment three days to de-cide whether to allow dine-inservices and that ended onThursday. Association mem-bers said they would meet thechief minister on Friday anddecide on withdrawing thetakeaway services.

“When we met Chief Minis-ter B S Yediyuuuy rappa on Tues-day, he sought three days’time(to decide on allowing dine-inservices),”Hebbar told DH. “If

the government refuses per-mission for dine-in, we willwithdraw the parcel servicesand close down hotels acrossKarnataka.”

When the governmenthas allowed small eateriesand roadside pushcarts, whyshould it not allow dining ataround 50,000 hotels in thestate,? Hebbar asked. “Wewould ensure social distanc-ing by revising the seatingarrangements. Despite this,if the government fails to con-sider our pleas, we cannot bearthe financial loss just by oper-ating parcel services,”he said.

Restaurrru ants passsa s on parcel chargesto customers, and they feel the pinch

BENGALURU, DHNS

WhhhW en timely medi-cal help was hardto come by during

the earlier phase of the lock-down, doctors at SparshHospital here have helpeda three-year-old girl fromAndhra Pradesh to stand onher own after she was on theverge of losing her leg in afreak accident.

On May 1, the child wasplaying on a swing at her

home in the remote village ofNaayanavenapalli, Singama-namala Mandalam, Anan-tapur district. Even as herfather was mowing the grasswith a sharp machete nearthe swing, she accidentallyslipped and fell on the ma-chete, injuring her legs. Shesuffered a near-total ampu-tation of her left leg just be-low the knee joint.

The distraught fatherrushed the girl to Bengaluru,320 km away. A team of ortho-

paedics and plastic surgeonsat Sparsh Hospital successful-ly performed the reconstruc-tive surgery on the leg. In bigrelief to the family, the childhas now been shifted out ofthe paediatric ICU.

According to the doctors, incases like this one, the ampu-tated part should be wrappedwith a moist cloth, sealed in aplastic bag and put in a mix-ture of ice and water. The partshould not be in contact withice.

BENGALURU, DHNS

Docs rejoin 3-yr-old’s leg after freak accident

Techie ends lifeA software professionaljumped to his death fromhis fourth-flllf oor apart-ment in Benniganahallion Thursday. Police saidUttam Hegde (30) did notleave a suicide note.

Hegde was close to hisparents and his anxie-ties heightened whenmarriage proposals beganto come. He was worriedhis prospective wife mayseparate him from his par-ents. Though his parentstook him to counsellingsessions, Hegde was notconvinced.

At 3.20 am on Thursday,Hegde came out to his bal-cony and jumped down.

FIRs against ACP, inspectors for taking bribes

The Anti-Corruption Bu-reau (ACB) has regis-tered three FIRs against

CCB assistant commissionerof police Prabhushankar Mand inspectors Ajay R M andNiranjan Kumar, who havebeen suspended over corrup-tion charges.

The officers are accusedof receiving huge kickbacksfrom tobacco dealers to letthem operate during the ear-lier period of the lockdownwhen it was illegal to sell allkinds of tobacco products.The fiasco came to light after

two tobacco dealers com-plained to city police com-

missioner Bhaskar Rao.Deputy commissioners of

police Kuldeep Kumar R Jain(Crime 1) and Ravikumar K P(Crime 2) were then taskedwith conducting an internalinquiry, which establishedthat the accusations wereright. The police subsequentlyraided the officers and recov-ered about Rs 30 lakh fromthem before they went ab-sconding.

The three officers are alsoaccused of taking bribes froma shopkeeper named Suresh,whom they had raided for sell-

ing fake N95 masks. While acase was registered againstSuresh at the Banaswadi po-lice station after the raid, theofficers allegedly promised toabsolve him of the accusationin exchange for money. Thecases in the tobacco extortionwere registered at the Cotton-pet police station.

The FIRs were registeredon the written orders of statepolice chief Praveen Sood,said a senior police officer.While Prabhushankar andAjay are named in all thethree FIRs, Kumar is listed injust one. “We’ll soon summonthem for questioning.”

BENGALURU, DHNS

MIGRANTS’ MISERIES

A policeman checks the documents of migrant workersfrom Chhattisgarh before allowing them to board a bus

home on Thursday. DH PHOTO/KRISHNAKUMAR P S

Pregnant women are given priority for the travel.(R) Tired of waiting, a child sleeps on his luggage.

DH PHOTOS/PUSHKAR V & JANARDHAN B K

Migrant laboruers wait hours on end at BIEC for informationabout their travel arrangements. DH PHOTO/B H SHIVAKUMAR

Lockdowneased,muggersactiveagain

The stricter the lockdown,the fewer the crimes or viceversa. Strengthening this the-ory, muggers have becomeactive again now that the cityyytis limping back to normali-tyyyt . Their main targets are mo-bile phones.

A 17-year-old youth wasrobbed of his mobile phone bytwo men aged about 22-25 inSouth Bengaluru on May 18.

Nidhiraj, a resident of KrishnaLayout, Devarachikkanahalli,was walking to an aunt’s houselocated in Pillareddy Layoutalong with his younger brotherwhen the muggers intercept-ed them. Flashing a knife, theywarned them against raisingan alarm and asked Nidhirajto part with his phone.

When he hesitated, oneof the muggers beat him upwhile his accomplice contin-ued to hold the knife. Nidhiraj

got scared and gave the phoneaway. Before leaving, one of themuggers introduced himself asGovindaraju alias Parivala Put-ta, a local rowdy, and warnedhim againstgoingtothepolice.

Nidhiraj, however, filed acomplaint with the jurisdic-tional Begur police. An officersaid they had registered acase of robbery with attemptto cause death or grievoushurt. Efforts are underway toarrest the muggers.

BENGALURU, DHNS

STATE 3DECCANNNA HERAAAR LLLA DFridayMay 22, 2020

Mandya district onThursday witnessedan explosion of Cov-

id-19 cases with 33 testing pos-itive for novel coronavirus.

Of the 33 cases, 29 are withtravel history to Mumbai andother Maharashtra citieswhile four people are believedto have contracted virus fromPatient 869.

A flllf urry of new cases tookMandya past 200-mark. Thedistrict holds the dubious dis-tinction of having the secondhighest Covid-19 cases in thestate, after Bengaluru Urban.However, the district has more

active cases (179) than Ben-galuru Urban.

According to Deputyyyt Com-missioner M V Venkatesh,“All 29 people with Mum-bai travel history arefrom KR Pet and Na-gamangala taluks.They had returned todistrict recently. Theywere stopped at Aneg-ol check-post and sent toinstitutional quarantine. Thethroat swab samples of all 29have returned positive for Cov-id-19.”

Patients 1467, 1486 and 1487are the contacts of Patient 869while Patient 1597 has con-tracted the virus from Patient

896, the DC said.Allaying the fear of local or

communityyyt transmission, theDC said, “Most of the cases inthe district, so far, are linkedto Tablighi, Nanjangud clus-ter or Mumbai returnees. Notmany local cases are reported.Hence, there is no need for thepeople to panic.” He urged thelocal residents to inform the

district administration orpolice about any un-

authorised entry ofinterstate travellersin their area.

The district ad-ministration and

the health depart-ment are braced for

any Covid-19 eventualities.The MIMS hospital has beenconverted into a 35-bed Cov-id-19 hospital. This apart,Vokkaligara Bhavan has beentransformed into a Covid carecentre with 150-bed facilityyyt , theDC informed.

Meanwhile, Hassan report-ed 13 new cases of Covid-19, allwith a travel history to Mumbaiand other Maharashtra cities.The district’s total case counthas increased to 67.

Among the infected are sev-en from Channarayapatna, in-cluding six of a family, and sixpeople from Holenarasipurataluk. The infected include

boys aged four and eight, anda seven-year-old girl.

According to the districtadministration, a total of 1,664people from other states, most-ly Maharashtra, have returnedto the district. Swab specimenof all the interstate travellershave been sent for testing andthe reports of 600 people areawaited.

Interstate travellers turnMandya into viiiv rus hotspot

MANDYA/ HASSAN, DHNS

29 Mumbai returnees, 4 contactsof P-869 test +ve; tally 201

▼▼▼

CDPO on Coviiv d-19 dutyytcontrrt actsst viiv rri uur s

A child developmentproject officer (CDPO),deputed on Covid-19 dutyytat Malavalli containmentzone, has tested positivefor coronavirus on Thurs-day, reports DHNS fromMandya.

The CDPO used totravel from Mysuru to his

workplace Malavalli daily.He had recently visitedNanjangud and Chama-rajanagar. All his primaryand secondary contacts,including Revenue, Healthand police personnel,had been quarantined,according to Mandya DCM V Venkatesh.

Residents stand in a queue to leave for a quarantine centre at Nandipur village inMudigere taluk in Chikkamagaluru district on Thursday. After a doctor in a government

primary health centre in Mudigere taluk tested positive for Covid-19, around 300 people,who had come into primary contact with the doctor in some villages, were admitted to

various quarantine centres in the taluk on Thursday.DH PHOTO

Q FOR QUARANTINE

BENG ALURU, DHNS: In thewake of the pandemic, ChiefMinister B S Yediyuurappa hasdirected the Labour depart-ment to actively register la-bourers from the unorganisedsector under the social securityyytnet.

During a review meeting, it

was brought to the CM’s noticethat even though officials hadgiven financial assistance to12.4 lakh construction workersregistered with the KarnatakaBuilding and Other Construc-tion Workers Welfare Board,only 89,000 labourers wereregistered under the Kar-

nataka State UnorganisedWorkers Social SecurityBoard.

Yediyurappa, who alsoreviewed works under theIndustries and Commercedepartment, asked officials toweekly monitor the activities ofthe special task force formed to

attract investments and indus-tries that are looking to moveout of China in the wake of theCovid-19 pandemic.

The government intendsto come up with special in-centive schemes for investorsand is holding discussionswith experts in the industrial

sector, an official release said.The government also hopesthat the amendments madeto Land Reforms Act, simpli-fyyyf ing the process of land pur-chase, will attract investors.About 70% of the industrieshave resumed functioning, theCM was told.

Only 89k labourers registered with social security board

UDUPI/MANGALURU/KAR-WAR , DHNS: The coastaldistricts witnessed a stag-gering 40 Covid-19 cases onThursday with Udupi dis-trict alone accounting for27 cases.

Udupi Deputy Commis-sioner G Jagadheesh toldreporters that all 27 casesreported on Thursday havea travel history to Mahar-ashtra, Telangana or Ker-ala. Maharashtra returneesaccounted for 23 cases whilefour Telangana returneesand one from Kerala testedpositive for the virus.

What’s more disturbing is14 of the 27 cases reportedfrom Udupi district are chil-dren below 10 years.

The infected have beenadmitted to Dr TMAPai Hospital in UdupiOf the 3,765 swab samples,as many as 2,,231 have re-turned negative in the dis-trict. Report of 1,487 sam-ples are awaited.

Six men who returned toMangaluru from Dubai onVande Bharat mission flllf ighton May 18, have tested posi-tive for Covid-19.

All six infected, aged be-tween 29 and 60, were un-der institutional quarantine,along with other co-passen-gers of the flllf ight. With sixfresh cases, the district’s tallyshot up to 61.

A 45 year-old man fromShaktinagar was dischargedfrom the hospital, post-re-covery, on Thursday. So far,21 patients have been dis-charged from hospital.

Meanwhile, Uttara Kan-nada district saw seven newcases, including three chil-dren aged one, sixxxi and seven,on Thursday. All seven havea travel history to Mahar-ashtra.

Coastal distssee 40 Covid-19

cases; Udupiaccounts for 27

Cong asks BSY to withdraw FIRagainst Sonia Gandhi

BENGALURU, DHNS: The Kar-nataka Congress has urgedChief Minister BS Yedi-yurappa to withdraw a firstinformation report (FIR)registered against Congresspresident Sonia Gandhi inconnection with a complaintfiled by a BJP activist.

The Sagara town policein Shivamogga district hasregistered a case based ona complaint by K V PraveenKumar, who alleged that theCongress’ official Twitterhandle @INCIndia posted amessage suggesting that thePM-CARES fund was beingmisused.

A delegation led by KPCCpresident D K Shivaku-mar met Yediyurappa on

this issue. The Congress hasthreatened to protest if theFIR is not withdrawn.

“The complainant has filedthis complaint with a politicalmotive on false informationstating that Sonia Gandhi hastweeted stating that PrimeMinister has been misusingthe PM-CARES fund (sic),”Shivakumar said in his peti-tion to Yediyuuuy rappa.

“SoniaGandhibeinganMPand Congress president hadtwwwt eeted with the intention offorcing the prime minister touse the CARES fund for thewelfare of the people of thecountry,” he said. Leader ofthe Opposition Siddaramaiahalso demanded that the FIRbe withdrawn immediately.

Union EnvironmentMinister Prakash Ja-vadekar has agreed to

hold separate consultationswith states onthecontentiousK Kasturirangan committeereport on conserving theWestern Ghats, Chief Minis-ter B S Yediyurappa’s officesaid Thursday.

Karnataka has repeated-ly rejected the recommen-dations of the committee,Yediyurappa told Javadekarduring a video conference,adding that the Centre cannotissue a common notificationon the matter.

“Gram panchayats, talukpanchayats, zilla panchayats,elected representatives andthe Cabinet have rejected thedraft notification on ecolog-ically sensitive areas accord-ing to the Kasturiranganreport in its present format,”Yediyurappa said in the vid-eo conference, according toa statement from the ChiefMinister’s Office.

“Since every state hasdifferent problems and chal-lenges, it is not for the Centreto issue an identical notifica-tion for all states. Javdekarexpressed his consent on

the matter and said that hewould discuss the issue withthe states individually,” theCMO said.

The Kasturirangan Com-mittee has recommendedthat 20,668 sq km spreadacross 11 districts in the West-ern Ghats cradling 1,592 vil-lages be declared as an Eco-logical Sensitive Area (ESA),which comes with restrictionsthat the government believeswill hamper developmentworks.

In all, the draft notifica-tion identified 56,825 sqkmspread across six states —Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa,Karnataka, Kerala and TamilNadu — as Ecologically Sensi-tive Area (ESA).

The Centre issued the firstdraft notification in March2014. A second one came inSeptember 2015, followed bythe third in February 2017.The fourth draft notificationwas issued in October 2018.

Forest Minister Anand Sin-gh, Chief Secretary T M VijayBhaskar, Additional ChiefSecretary (Forest, Ecology &Environment) Sandeep Dave,ministers and officials fromMaharashtra,Kerala,Goa,Ta-mil Nadu and Gujarat partici-patedinthevideoconference.

BENGALURU, DHNS

Talk to all stateson W Ghat report:BSY to Javadekar

‘Arogya Setu app mandatoryfor govt employees’

BENGALURU, DHNS: Threedays after the Centre consid-erably diluted the provisionthat mandated the compul-sory use of ‘Aargoya Setu’app, Medical EducationMinister Dr K Sudhakar an-nounced that there wouldbe no entry for governmentemployees who did not down-load the app.

“The app has to be down-loaded by all from the grampanchayat-level to thoseworking in Vidhana Soudha,”he said.

With the Centre givingstates more power to dealwith infection zones, it hasnow omitted the referenceof the use of the app in con-tainment zones. Again, statescan decide to either imposethe mandatory use of the appin containment zones or anyother zone depending on theground situation.

“We should be proud ofthe act that twwwt o Goibibo em-

ployees from Karnataka wereinstrumental in developingthe app in collaboration withNational Informatics Centre,”he added.

About 63 lakh people havealready downloaded the appin Karnataka out of which2,255 users got a red flllf agalert through the self-testfeature. All of them have gotmessages to get tested forCovid-19. About 233 peoplehave been tested and 17 ofthem have tested positive.This means 7.5 % of peoplewho got tested following theapp alert have tested positive.The national average for thesame is 30%.

“People need not panic asthe data about the positivepatients will be held by thedistrict task force heads ofthe respective districts. Theapplication is safe to use andis controlled fully by the Gov-ernment of India and the datais encrypted,” he said.

Health screeningsuspendedBENGALURU, DHNS: Thegovernment has sus-pended health screeningat checkpoints. A circularissued by the governmentsaid that there will not beany health screening forthose travelling withinthe districts by privatevehicles.

STATE4 DECCANNNA HERAAAR LLLA DFriday

May 22, 2020

Sri Chamarajendra ZoologicalGardens (Mysuru Zoo), one of thepopular and most visited tourist

destinations of the cityyt , is all set toopen for the public on June 1 after thelongest gap ever of 67 days.

The zoo is closed for visitors sinceMarch 25 in the wake of lockdown dueto coronavirus or Covid-19. However,the zoo officials have brought out a 28-page ‘Standard Operating Guidelineson Reopening Post-Covid-19 Lock-down’, to be followed, whenever it isopened.

The guidelines read: “Althoughthe number of visitors is expected tobe much lower than normal times,the zoo is taking measures to ensurethe safetyyt of visitors, employees andanimals. Though it may cause incon-venience to visitors and staff, thereis no option, but to accept the newnorm. There is a 3.5-km long visitorpath, with an average width of 6 m. Itis assumed that visitors use 2 metreson both sides of the pathway and theremaining 2 m can be provisionedfor movement of battery-operatedvehicles, movement of feed vehiclesand zoo staff.”

“A visitor takes around 3 hours tocover the zoo, by walk and the safedistance betwwt een visitors required toensure social distance is 2 m. Thus, thenumber of visitors, who can be safely

accommodated at any given point oftime is 3,100. Safely, 166 visitors per 10minutes and 8,000 visitors per day canbe allowed,” the guidelines say.

The visitors should not have cough,cold or fever symptoms. They shouldcompulsorily wear face masks andundergo body temperature scanning.They can buy face masks from a dedi-cated counter at the entrance. e-ticketbooking is preferred over manualticket collection.

All visitors should pass over themedicated foot mat at the entrance.They should maintain social distanceon the zoo premises and avoid touch-ing barricades and other surfaces.They should move along the designat-ed visitor path only. Avoid carryingluggage, which needs a locker room

facilityyt . Visitors should neither spitnor chew pan masala, gutka or khaini.Those above 65 years of age can avoidvisiting. All visitors will be underCCTV camera monitoring and anyviolation will attract a penaltyyt of up toRs 1,000.

The zoo, a part of Zoo Authorityytof Karnataka (ZAK), with 80 acresof land, includes Karanji Lake and isspread over 157 acres. It is home to1,400 plus animals and bird of 152species, from over 25 nations. Eversince its inception in 1892, by TenthChamaraja Wadiyar, the longest everbreak for the menagerie was in 2017,30 days, from January 4 to February 2,due to bird fllf u scare.

Even though Nandankanan Zoo-logical Park, a 437-hectare zoo andbotanical garden in Bhubaneswar, Od-isha, established in 1960, is the largestfacilityyt in India, it is not as popular asMysuru Zoo.

Besides, Mysuru Zoo figures in thelist of top five zoos of Asia, by Listly,followed by Singapore Zoo and KhaoKheow Open Zoo, Pattaya Thailand.It also figures in the list of top 10 zooin Asia, according to Trip Advisorpoll, followed by Singapore Zoo; KhaoKheow Open Zoo; Chimelong, Xiang-jiang Safari Park, Guangzhou, China;Adventure World, Shirahama-cho,Japan; Million Years Stone Park andPattaya Crocodile Farm,Thailand; and Asahiyama Zoo,Asahikawa, Japan.

MysuruZooreadytoreceivevisitors,withguidelines

ANIMAL WORLD BECKONS

T R SATHISH KUMARMYSURU, DHNS

Visitors watch a leopard at SriChamarajendra Zoological Gardens inMysuru, before the lockdown. DH PHOTO

Chief Minister B S Yedi-yurappa on Thursdaypublicly chided Law

Minister J C Madhuswamy foryelling at a woman farmer inKolar, an incident that attract-ed widespread criticism.

The incident occurredon Wednesday, when Mad-huswamy, who is also the mi-nor irrigation minister, wasinspecting the Kora-mangala-Challaghatta(KC) Valley project, un-der which Bengaluru’ssewage is treated andpumped into lakes inKolar.

During his visit,farmer Nalini Gowdaquestioned Madhuswamyon the encroachment of the1,022-acre S Agrahara lake.

At one point, Madhuswamylost his cool and yelled, “Aye!Shut your mouth, rascal,”and asked the police to takeher away. Before this, Mad-huswamy told her, “Make arequest. I’m a very bad man.You can only air your griev-ance. Don’t command us.”

A video of this exchange wasaired by news channels.

“What (Madhuswamy) saidis not right. I have warned him.None can forgive such an ex-plicit manner of talking to a

woman. That too, a ministerbehaving like that doesn’t bodewell. I will talk to that womanalso and I’ll ensure this doesn’thappen again,” Yediyurappatold reporters.

The incident came as an op-portunity for the OppositionCongress, which is alreadyattacking the Yediyurappaadministration on the Cov-id-19 crisis.

Criticising Madhuswamy’sbehaviour, Leader ofthe Opposition Sid-daramaiah demandedan apology and askedYediyurappa to drophim from the Cabinet.

On his part, Mad-huswamy said he feltintimidated and so the

incident happened. “I apolo-gise. Maybe, I shouldn’t havesaid that,” he said.

“I’ll even step down if myleaders ask, but at the sametime, as someone with self-re-spect, I won’t surrender toanyone. People should realisethat we go to their villages tolisten to their problems,” theminister said.

“If they start abusing uspublicly, how can we work?We heard the woman out andthen told her that we know ourresponsibilityyyt . We asked her toclose the issue. She didn’t stopand I got tempted (sic).”

BSY rebukes ministerfor abusing lady farmer

The incident occurred duringMadhuswamy’s visit to Kolar

▼▼▼BENGALURU, DHNS

Rajya Raitha Sangha & HasiruSene condemns minister

B E N G A L U R U , DH N S : T h eK a r n a t a k a Ra jy a R a i t h aSangha and Hasiru Sene hascondemned Law Minister JC Madhuswamy for his com-ment on a woman activist.

“What Madhuswamy saidwas not a slip of tongue, for it tobe overlooked with an apology.He knew what he was talking.This is not the first time thathe has exhibited such behav-iour. Coming from grassrootactivism background himself,it is unfortunate that the min-ister spoke in such a mannertowards a fellow activist,” Rai-

tha Sangha senior leader K TGangadhar said.

Speaking about how shehandled the situation in acomposed manner, NaliniGowda told DH that shedrew strength from the factthat she had a specific issueto convey despite feeling hu-miliated by the minister’sreaction.

“I had my facts in place andI wanted to convey a specificproblem affecting the region.I was not speaking about mypersonal issue,’’ Nalini Gowdasaid.

JCM apologiig ses for ‘inni ssn ullu tiit nni g’womanna farra mmr er actiit viiv stts

Law and District In-chargeMinister J C Madhuswamyhas unconditionally apolo-gised for having ‘insulted’a woman farmeractivist by callingher a ‘rascal’, herein Tumakururecently. “I shouldnot have used theword rascal toretort to the wom-an’s allegations. Iapologise to herand everybody else whohas been hurt by this inci-dent,” the minister said.

Speaking to reporters,Madhuswamy said he

too has self-respect andis not interested in beingblamed by people whodon’t matter. “The lady

also should refllf ecton her behaviourthat day. Onlyafter I scolded hershe began callingme a brother,” heclaimed.

The ministeralso said thatSiddaramaiah,

who has demanded hisresignation is not a chiefminister now. “I will resignif my partyyt seniors wantme too,” he added.

Madhuswamy

Yediyurappa

District Positive Discharged Active DeathsBengaluru Urban 256 124 122 9+1*

(*non-Covid death)

Mandya 201 25 176 0Kalaburagi 134 55 72 07Belagavi 125 64 60 01Davangere 115 14 97 04Mysuru 90 88 02 0Bagalkot 76 37 38 01Bidar 67 21 44 02Hassan 66 0 66 0Uttara Kannada 63 12 51 0Vijayapura 61 37 20 04Dakshina Kannada 53 14 34 05Udupi 47 03 43 01Dharwad 31 09 22 0Shivamogga 30 0 30 0Ballari 30 13 16 01Chikkaballapur 26 18 06 02Gadag 20 04 15 01Raichur 16 0 16 0Tumakuru 16 05 09 02Yadgiri 13 0 13 0Kolar 11 0 11 0Chitradurga 10 01 09 0Bengaluru Rural 06 06 0 0Others 42 21 20 01

1605 571 992 41Total

District-wise Covid-19 tally

NEWS 5DECCANNNA HERAAAR LLLA DFridayMay 22, 2020

W E AT H E R Overvvvr iiiv ewRain/ thundershowers likelyto occur at isolated placesover South Interior Karna-taka and Coastal KarnatakaDry weather prevailed overNorth Interior Karnataka.Forecast-May 22Rainfall occured at isolatedplaces over the State.

INTERIOR NORTHStations Max Min RainBelagavi 33 NA 00Vijayapura 39.5 23 00Dharwad 35 21.7 00Haveri 33.4 22.4 00Kalaburagi 42.6 27.2 00Raichur 41.4 27.4 00COASTALHonnavar 32.7 25.5 00Karwar 35 28.1 00Shirali 35.9 26.9 00Mangaluru 34.7 25.4 00

INTERIOR SOUTHStations Max Min RainAgumbe 34 16.8 00Bengaluru 33.2 22 00Ballari NA NA NAChamarajanagar NA NA NAChikkamagaluru 29 19.5 00Chitradurga 33.3 22.5 00Davangere 31 19.8 00Hassan 34 21.6 00Mysuru 31.4 24 1.1Madikeri 25 16.8 00Kolar 36.6 21.1 00

OTHER STATIONSStations Max Min RainNew Delhi 42 25 00Kolkata 32 25 20.7Mumbai 35 29 00Chennai 42 32 00Pune 38 23 00Hyderabad 41 27 00Trivandrum 33 25 36.6

COVID SNAPSHOTKARNATAKA: DAY-WISE COVID TESTS

MARCH 15 — MAY 20, 2020

SOURCE: STATE COVID-19 WAR ROOM DH GRAPHICS / RASHEED KAPPAN/ KARTHIK/PRAKASH

832

474 64

6

1204

2181

3836

4892

4295

5017

6265

801

64 73

15Marc

h

20Marc

h

25Marc

h

30Marc

h

4April

9April

14Apr

il

19Apr

il

24Apr

il

29Apr

il

4May9May

14May

18May

19May

20May

7195

Tests(per day)

8182

6936 The Supreme Court has

awarded a whoppingRs 7.64 crore compen-

sation to the family membersof a 45-year old man who gotkilled in the crash of Air IndiaExpress Flight 812 from Du-bai, in Mangaluru on May 22,2010.

A total of 158 people of the166 passengers on board per-ished in the accident.

On a plea by Triveni Kod-kany, wife of deceased Ma-hendra Kodkany, a bench ofJustices D Y Chandrachudand Ajay Rastogi disagreedwith the reasonings of theNCDRC, on making a deduc-tion from the salary of thevictim while calculating thecompensation.

The National ConsumerDisputes Redressal Commis-sion (NCDRC) had grantedthe wife, daughter and son ofthe deceased Rs 7.35 crore as

compensation.The top court has now di-

rected Air India to pay themthe enhanced amount alongwith 9% interest per annum.

Kodkany was an expat andemployed as the regional di-rector for the Middle EasternRegion with GTL Overseas(Middle East) FZ-LLC, aUAE-based company.

In its judgement, the topcourt said bifurcation of thesalary of the deceased into di-verse heads may be made bythe employer for a varietyyyt ofreasons.

However, in a claim forcompensation arising out ofthe death of the employee, theincome has to be assessed onthe basis of the entitlement ofthe employee, it said.

The court noted that Kod-kany was a confirmed em-ployee entitled to adequateweightage in terms of deter-mination of compensation inthe event of untimely demise.

NEW DELHI, DHNS

SC orders Rs 7.64-crrelief to M’luru air

crash victim’s family

If Nairobi hit the headlines inIndia, it’s Vincent Ferrer behind it

HYDERABAD, DHNS: A videoclip of Alba Flores aka Nairo-bi of Money Heist donning ru-ral Indian attire and speakingTelugu has been charmingthe Netflix’s crime-dramaaficionados, for the past fewdays on social media.

What is remarkable is theperson’s life based on whichthe movie – Vincente Ferrer(2013) – is made, in whichFlores, a Spanish actress whoplayedthemuch-lovedrobbercharacter Nairobi, portrayedthe role of Shamira, an Anan-tapuram woman.

Born in 1920 in Barcelona,Vincent Ferrer took part inthe Spanish civil war. Later, asa Jesuit missionary he cameto India in 1952 and workedin Maharashtra. In 1969, hedistanced himself from theChristian order and movedto Anantapuram, the mostbackwwwk ard district of AP.

Over the next four decades,Ferrer helped change thelives of lakhs of people from

disadvantaged communities.TheRuralDevelopmentTrusthe set up works in the fieldsof education, health, housing,environment, sustainablelivelihoods etc., executingprojects aimed at eliminatingpovertyyyt .

Ferrer’s statues dot Anan-tapuram villages and hisportraits are found in manyhouseholds. RDT activitiesare at present centered inaround 3700 villages ofAnantapuram and Kurnooldistricts. Threehospitals RDTruns at Bathalapalli, Kalyana-durgam and Kanekal provideover nine lakh consultations ayear at a nominal cost.

In this time of Covid-19,RDT has focused its effortsand resources on aiding peo-ple directly and indirectly af-fected by the virus.

RDT Bathalapalli Hospi-tal, designated as a Covid-19hospital, is serving as a refer-ence centre in Anantapuramdistrict .

IndiablamesChinaforflare-upsalongboundary

India on Thursday accusedChinese People’s Libera-tion Army (PLA) of hinder-

ing “normal patrolling” by itssoldiers and thus escalatingtension along the disputedboundary between the twoneighbouriiir ngnationsineasternnnrLadakh and northern Sikkim.

New Delhi also turned thetable on Beijing and tacitly criti-cized China’s recent aggressionin the disputed South ChinaSea. “The South China Sea is apartttr of global commons. India,therefore, has an abiding in-terest in peace and stabilityyyt inthe region” AnnnA urag Srivastava,

spokesperson of the Ministryyyr ofExtttx ernal Affairs (MEA), said inNew Delhi. “India firmly standsfor freedom of navigation andoverfffr lllf ightandunimpededlawfffw uuuf lcommerce in the internationalwatersinaccordancewithinter-nationallawsnotablytheUnitedNations Convention on the Lawof the Sea,”he added.

India vowed to protect itssovereigntyyyt and ensure its se-curityyyt even as it asserted thatits troops had not crossed theLine of Actual Control (LAC)and transgressed into the ter-ritory claimed by China.

“Any suggestion that In-dian troops had undertakenactivityyyt across the LAC in theWestern Sector (Ladakh) or

the Sikkim Sector is not accu-rate. Indian troops are fullyfamiliar with the alignmentof the LAC in the India-Chinaborder areas and abide by itscruupulously,”SrivastavasaidinNew Delhi.

“Alll Indian activities are en-tirely on the Indian side of theLAC. In fact, it is a Chinese sidethat has recently undertakenactivityyyt hindering India’s nor-mal patrolling patterns,” saidSrivastava,adding,“Indiansidehas always taken a very respon-sible approach towards bordermanagement.Atthesametime,we are deeply committed to en-suring India’s sovereigntyyyt andsecurityyyt ”.

China on Monday accused

India of trespassing into itsterritory and illegally buildingdefence facilities in the GalwanValley in eastern Ladakh.

New Delhi dismissed the al-legation, insisting that the In-dian Army soldiers had nevertransgressed into the territoryof China. The Chinese PLA hadrather first deployed additionaltroops, who had set up as manyas 80 tents near the disputedboundary. What apparentlyrattled the Chinese PLA andprompted it to deploy addition-al troops in Galwan Valley wasa new strategic road construct-ed by the Border Roads Organ-ization of the Government ofIndia in the region.

The build-up on both sides

of the LAC in eastern LadakhcontinuedonThursday,evenasthe twwwt o sides had engagements– both between Indian Armyand Chinese PLA as well as atthe level of diplomats – to de-fuse tension along the disputedboundary.

“The Indian troops strictlyfollowtheprocedureslaiddownin various bilateral agreementsand protocols to resolve any sit-uations which may arise due todifference in perception of theLAC,”Srivastavasaid.“Thetwwwt osides have established mecha-nismstoresolvesuch situationspeacefully through dialogue.Both sides remain engagedwith each other to address anyimmediate issues.”

ANIRBAN BHAUMIKNEW DELHI, DHNS

Miffed at violations ofCovid-19 lockdown re-strictions from various

parts of the country, the Cen-tre on Thursday asked states toensure strict implementationof guidelines, including delin-eation of containment zones,night curfew and the wearingof masks in public places.

Union Home Secretary AjayBhalla shot off letters to statessaying “media reports and oth-er sources” have highlightedthat there are “violations” ofthe guidelines issued for lock-down 4.0 that started fromMay 18.

Several states have not ear-marked containment zonesproperly besides delaying de-cisions of profiling localitiesinto red, orange and greenzones according to infectionrate, relaxing night curfew andnot enforcing social distancingand wearing of masks in publicplaces in strict form.

Bhalla said that proper de-lineation of containment zonesand effective implementationof containment measures with-in these zones is key to prevent-ing the spread of Covid-19.

Delhi Health Secretary Pad-mini Singla wrote to district ad-ministrations highlighting thatthe number of containmentzones have come down despite

the capital reporting 300-400cases every day.

While states like Karnatakahad said that it would not col-our code localities in the state,Bhalla has emphasised thatstates and Union Territoriesshould delineate various zonesand decide on the activities tobe prohibited within thesezones.

Bhalla also emphasised theneed to ensure night curfew orprohibition of all non-essentialactivities betwwwt een 7 pm and 7am, which he said was an “im-portant element of the Min-istry of Home Affairs (MHA)guidelines”.

“The night curfew has beenmandated with a view to en-sure that people observe socialdistancing, and to contain therisk of infection.Local author-ities should be asked to issueorders in the entiretyyyt of theirjurisdiction, under provisionsof law, for imposition of nightcurfew. Strict compliance ofthese orders should be en-sured by the local authorities,”he said.

West Bengal CM Mama-ta Banerjee had earlier an-nounced that there will be nonight curfew during lockdown4.0 but said people will facepolice action if they step outof their homes. The MHA wasalso upset about not enforcingtheNationalDirectives forCov-id-19 Management.

SHEMIN JOYNEW DELHI, DHNS

Upset over Coviiiv d-19guuug idelines, MHAAAH shoots

offfff lettttt er to states

Pharmaceutical firm Jubi-lant Generics, which hadturned Nanjangud in

Mysuru district into a Covid-19hotspot, will resume manufac-turing of drugs as the state gov-ernment accorded clearancefor its operations.

The company had soughtpermission to restart the oper-ations after its parent companyJubilant Life Sciences tied upwith the US drug firm Gileadto manufacture and sell Rem-desivir, which is consideredto be a frontline drug to treatCovid-19.

“The work on modification

of the plant to supply the prod-uct has to begin immediatelyto manufacture Remdesivir.In view of this extreme urgen-cy, it is critical to resume andnormalise operations at theJubilant Generics, Nanjangudplant immediately,” a letter tothe government by the compa-ny read.

The company noted thatit also manufactured criticalmedicines like Azithromycin,Losartan, Valsartan, Irbesar-tan, Carbamazepine, Oxcar-bazepine.

“Jubilant also manufacturesAzithromycin Dihydrate andAzithromycin Monohydratethat are used as the first line

of treatment for COVID-19,”it said.

When contacted, Nanjan-gud MLA B Harshavardhanconfirmed that the govern-ment has permitted the re-sumption of operations whichare likely to commence in a fewdays.

All industrial activities havestarted and the Jubilant facto-ry in Nanjangud, which wasshut due to Covid-19, has been

permitted to resume work,officials informed Chief Min-ister BS Yediyuuuy rappa during areview meeting on Thursday.

The company also stressedthat preventive measures inline with the Ministry of HomeAffairs’ guidelines and proto-cols will be followed, addingthat detailed sanitising workwas carried out by a profes-sional agency.

The manufacturing of Rem-

desivir, Azithromycin and thesupply of other drugs to peoplewith the shortest possible timewill save countless lives. In or-der to fight this global menaceand in the interest of the peopleof the state of Karnataka andthe country the plant needs tostart full operations immedi-ately, the letter added.

A person (52) employedat the Jubilant Generics wasidentified as the source of in-fection of Nanjangud Clusterspreading novel coronavi-rus to 76 people, of which 48were primary contacts, 24secondary and two tertiarycontacts.

The state government in-stituted a probe under IASofficer Harsh Gupta in Aprilto unravel the source of infec-tion of the Nanjangud cluster.However, on May 2, he sub-mitted an incomplete reportto the government citing lackof cooperation from somedepartments.

Govt allows Nanjanguuug d pharmafiiif rm to resume operations

Its parent company has tied up withUS firm to make likely Covid drug

▼▼▼BENGALURU, DHNS

MYSURU, DHNS: With IndianRailways gradually resum-ing inter-district passengertrain services, the train ser-vice between Mysuru andBengaluru will start fromFriday.

The first inter-districtpassenger service from Ben-galuru will arrive at Mysuruat 12.30 pm on Friday. Thetrain will depart to Bengalu-ru at 1.45 pm.

The passenger train ser-vices were suspended onMarch 22 in the wake of theoutbreak of Covid-19 pan-demic.

Mysuru Railway stationis all geared up for the re-sumption of train services.Divisional railway managerAparna Garg and other di-visional officers conducteda preliminary inspectionto ensure a high level ofhygiene, cleanliness andsecurity. The passengerswill be thermally screenedand hand sanitised beforeboarding train at Mysuru.Social distancing will also beensured. The incoming rakewill also be disinfected andsanitised before boarding,according to the authorities.

District in-charge Min-ister S T Somashekar, MPPratap Simha inspected thearrangements at MysuruRailway station, on Thurs-day.

Online ticketAll passengers have tobook tickets online throughIRCTCwebsite.Thebookingis open. The advanced reser-vation period is seven days.Confirmedticketpassengersalone shall be allowed to en-ter the platform. Passengershave to take precautionarymeasures such as wearing ofmasks and should reach theboarding station 90 minutesin advance.

B’luru-Mysurutrain servicefrom today

BENG A L U RU, DHNS : TheC e n t r a l C r im e B r a n c h(CCB) police have arrest-ed a 28-year-old regionalTV channel chief executiveofficer (CEO) in connectionwith the murder of Macho-halli Gram Panchayat mem-ber Lakshminarayan (43)in Bengaluru Rural on April15, 2019.

Mohan Kumar MN, theaccused from Machohallivillage, was at large afterLakshminarayan was killedby a gang of more than eightpersons at Madanayakana-halli, said deputy commis-sioner of police (Crime - 2)Ravi Kumar.

At the time of the murder,Mohan was MD of region-al channel JTV. At pres-ent, he is CEO of TV 6. Theproperty dispute resultedin the murder, said thepolice.

TV channel CEOheld for murder

Trucker flees with migrants’ Rs 1.4LMIGRAAAR NT LAAAL BOUR, FROM PAGE 1

Prasad said the bus droppedthem off near Mehkri Circle.“The trucker is from UP andwe trusted him and paid Rs 1.36lakh. He told us he would waiton the AnnnA dhra side but stoppedanswering calls,” he said.

The labourers walked toWhitefield at night. On Thurs-day morning, about 10 of themgot train tickets and left whilethe rest stayed near the policestation.

When DH reached out tothem in the evening, they saidthey had no food. Membersof Whitefield Rising, learn-ing about their plight late in

the evening, organised food.“We are trying to find shelterfor them. Calls to the LabourDepartment have not yieldedany results,” a member of theWhitefield Rising said.

Prasad said they were yetto find shelter. “Some of thelabourers have walked toChandapura and Attibele tofind jobs and earn enough fora train ticket,” he said.

Alibaba said the state gov-ernment has failed to get itsact together twwwt o months afterthe migrant labourers werepushed into the crisis. “Theywill die of hunger, if not thedisease, if the system doesn’twake up,” he warned.

Number of Covid patients...HOSPITAL, FROM PAGE 1

“This is happening becausethe virus is spreading beyondwhat is amenable to contain-ment,”hesaid.Ifcomparedonabsolute numbers, the jumpis nearly five fold — from lessthan 800 individuals on April26 to nearly 4,000 on May 20.

However, it’s not an entire-ly accurate comparison as thenumber of people tested forthe virus grew manifold inthose four weeks, increasingthe testing base.

“It is like a funnel. As thebase volume increases, theones coming through thefunnel are the more seriousand sick ones. When we havemore sick people in the hos-pitals, the number of peoplewith hypoxiiix a, needing ventila-tors, is higher,”said OommenJohn, a senior public healthresearcher at the GeorgeInstitute for Global Health,India.

“Also, there have beenchanges in the criteria forhospitalisation. The mildcases are now being advisedto be at home. The more sickones are staying at hospitalbecause they need oxyyyx gen orventilators,” he said.

India currently has 63,624active Covid-19 cases where-as 45,299 patients have beencured, according to a state-ment released by the healthministry. Over 3,400 peoplehave died due to Covid-19,of which more than 50% areabove 60 years of age. Anoth-er 35% are in the age bracketof 45-60 years. Further, 73%of the death cases had under-lying co-morbidities.

Number of Covid patientsneeding hospital care jumpsEarlier this week, UnionHealth Minister Harsh Vard-han claimed that there werenearly 30,000 dedicated ICUbeds in India for seriously illCovid-19 patients.

BENGALURU, DHNS: The BSYediyuuuy rappa administrationhas clarified that marriagesthat were previously sched-uled to be held on May 24and May 31 - Sundays - willbe exempted from the totallockdown.

The government is-sued this clarification onThursday following pe-titions by citizens whichsought to know if theycould go ahead with mar-riages that were scheduledon Sundays.

Under Lockdown 4.0,Karnataka has decided toenforce a total lockdown onMay24andMay31 -Sundays- by suspending all relaxa-tion, including public trans-port services and closure ofshops. Only essential servic-es will be allowed while a cur-few will be in effect the wholeday to restrict the movementof people.

“Marriage events thatwere already scheduledwill be considered as a spe-cial case,” Karnataka StateDisaster ManagementAuthority member-secre-tary TK Anil Kumar said inthe clarification. “Deputycommissioners have beentold that marriages can bepermitted by ensuring so-cial distancing, capping thenumber of guests at 50 andstrict compliance with allother guidelines.”

In an advisory that wasissued previously, the De-partmentofHealth&FamilyWelfare said that marriagescan be held in a “suitablepublic place with good nat-ural ventilation (no air con-dition).”

No person from a contain-ment zone will be allowed toattend the event, and per-sons aged above 65 years,pregnant women and chil-dren below 10 years are notpermitted.

Besides prohibition onconsumption of alcohol, theadvisory said paan, gutkaand tobacco will not be al-lowed.

Face masks are compul-sory and all persons shouldmaintain a physical distanceof more than one metre. Thevenue shall be clean and hy-gienic, with a prohibition onspitting in public places.

A nodal person shouldbe identified to oversee thearrangements, the advisorysaid.

No bar onSunday

marriages: govt

Nanjangud town was earlier sealed down after a personemployed with Jubilant Generics pharma company was

infected with the coronavirus. DH FILE PHOTO

Support the disabledThe plight of as many as 482 personswith disabilities in Chickaballapurdistrict who have been deprived oftheir pension for the last few monthsowing to various reasons makes forextremely sad reading. The lackof even this meagre amount willput them under severe strain. Theauthorities concerned must setup a separate team of officials toexamine every case with respect tothe differently-abled who suffer fromvarious health problems, or thosewho have no one to care for them.This team could be advised to meetthem personally after ascertainingtheir condition and initiate neededsteps to release the pension within aspecified time.A K Shariff, Mysuru

Be transparentThere have been speculations thatthe non-reporting of any new caseson May 16 and flllf attening Covid-19curve based on ICMR could bemisleading. These aberrations havedealt a stupendous blow to gov-ernment’s sincerity, credibility andconcerns. Abrupt discontinuationof daily briefings can be viewed aslack of due diligence and which hascaused definitely more confusion.Only the Centre can’t be blamed forthis inadequate or lack of informa-tion. The states provide inputs ona daily basis to Centre. Some statesmay be suppressing or under-report-ing. Accountability is paramountduring a pandemic and the govern-ment should be transparent.Chanchal Nandy, West Burdwan,West Bengal

Nuanced diplomacyApropos “Delhi fumes as Nepal’s newmap claims India’s territory” (DH,May 20), one should not be surprisedif the new map of Nepal is inspired oreven set off by China. China is a pastmaster of cartographic aggressionin producing ‘ancient maps’ forinstance Arunachal Pradesh or theSouth China Sea. Now, Nepal seemsto be joining in on the sport. Thestatement that India has a morelethal virus than China or Italy is un-fortunate. A more nuanced approachto diplomacy is the key to harmony.H N Ramakrishna, Bengaluru

RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE

The days these days

The start of my second semesterat college, a blossoming love forwalks, exposure to new ideas and

a year of rapid change contextualisesthe lockdown for me.

College did not open after themid-semester break. On March 15,came the first drip before a deluge ofwork. WhatsApp groups were created,work divided, Google classrooms, doc-uments deployed—new systems weredeveloped.

I am one of twwwt o representatives of myclass. With few solutions for classmatesstruggling to follow the course comeshelplessness. Issues like lack of accesstoe-resources andexpensivedatapacksremain overlooked. These gaps are in-

creasingly visible within college, as theyare everywwwy here.

Classroom interactions now sufferturned-off cameras, muted micro-phones (necessary to prevent lagging)and poor internet. Conversations gotthe cogs whirring, silence leaves themcreaking. Online work has brought inworkdays without fixed ends. I try al-ternating between screen and paperwhen possible and betwwwt een studies andchores. Not neglecting work at home isa precarious balance. Ih ave slipped upseveral times.

While sweeping and mopping,learning the contours of the house, Ihave grown more aware than ever ofthe mess, triggering a slow but steadycleaning and dumping operation. I havealso started paying conscious attentionto my body, stretching to reach undershelves and sofas, moving on haunches.This has come with dancing every day.

On the roof every evening, my par-

ents and I watch the birds— orientalwhite-eyes, sunbirds, doves, eagles, lap-wings, parrots— against the reddeningskyyyk , rushing indoors when the massivehive near our house spills its bees. Ourtime together is also spent on preparingmeals, housework, conversations, andmovies. Despite rare fights and somefrustration, we get along well, and asalways, joke around.

Washing dishes is a time for intro-spection, which borders on edge ofoverthinking sometimes. There arethings that are worrying. I am begin-ning to grasp the dimensions of balanceand responsibilityyyt I had not anticipated.Gratefully I am inching towards beingan avid reader again.

Part of the lockdown has been un-learning my definition of daily life. Ihave stopped waiting for ordinary lifeto resume, knowing I have the fortuneand privilege to do that in an extraor-dinary time.

My journey of unlearningduring the lockdownnnw

The explanations given by Union Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman about the stimulus packagewhich she unveiled last week have not helped to

remove the widespread sense that it is not adequateto counter the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on theeconomy. She has said that the large sums that would gointotheeconomythroughcreditenhancementandfacili-tationmeasureswouldhaveamultiplierandtrickle-downeffect and would create demand. But the credit pipelinemay still remain choked as in the past, and even if it opensup and businesses get going, there may not be enoughdemand in the economy to respond to it. It will also takea long time for the money to trickle down and createdemand, while the need is to create it here and now. This

has again brought attention to theneed to put cash in people’s handsimmediately.

Itisalsonowknownthattheactu-al fiscal stimulus proposed throughthepackageisbarely1%oftheGDP,and not 10% as claimed earlier. The10% claim may have been made toshow that India’s package is similarto those announced by some othercountries like the US and the UK,which, it may be noted, decidedto cover up to 80% of the salariesof the staff and workers of privatecompaniesprovidedthecompanies

did not sack them. Compared to this, very little has beenpassed on or promised to those who have been hit by themore severe lockdown in India. The migrant workersare the worst hit, but the minister simply said there isnot enough data about them to help them. That’s not aconvincing reason for not helping people in distress whoare in camps across the country, restrained from goinghome for weeks. Data is needed when the help is to betargetedtospecificgroups.Inthesituationcreatedbythelockdown, the millions in distress are right in front of thegovernment’s eyes.

The minister also suggested that the governmenthad refrained from a large fiscal package because it hadlearnt lessons from the big stimulus package of the UPAgovernment after the2008globalfinancial crisis.Butthetwwwt o situations are entirely different. The economy wasnot as badly hit then as it is now. It was the continuationofthestimulusforamuchlongerperiodthanneededthatcaused high inflllf ation during the UPA regime. The pres-ent need is to stimulate demand and increase people’sbuying power. The minister has done well, however, tohint that the government may consider this in the weeksto come.

A trrrt anche of casssa h forthe poor, FM?

For loans, re-forms packageto work, putcash in hands

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Failure to prevent migrant exodus has aggravated spreadThe government ‘s failure to control the exodus ofmigrants has proved enormously costly to the statesconcerned. The high rate of Covid-19 infection amongmigrant labourers who have returned to their nativestates is a serious setback to states’ containment at-tempts. A large number of returnees are testing positiveand they are taking the disease burden to their nativestates. This will put enormous strain on the health infra-structure in the states and pose a serious threat to the

containment protocols in rural India. Random testingin Bihar revealed that one in four workers who returnedfrom Delhi were infected with coronavirus. Around 2.2million from Bihar migrate to other states. Uttar Pradeshand Rajasthan also face a similar crisis. The governmentshould have devised a plan to halt the spread during thelockdown and amp up testing so that these cases wouldhave come to light earlier.Venu G S, Kollam

IN PERSPECTIVE

TO BE PRECISE

Under the auspices of‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’,Finance Minister Nir-

mala Sitharaman announced a‘stimulus’package of Rs 3 lakhcrore in collateral-free loansand an additional Rs 20,000crore subordinate debt for Mi-cro, Small and Medium Enter-prises (MSMEs) in the country.In addition to this, the defini-tions for the qualifyyyf ing criteriaof MSMEs have been twwwt eaked.

The initiative aims to “essen-tially spur growth and build avery self-reliant India,” as perthe finance minister. However,what’s been offered under theinitiative does not seem to re-flllf ect the intention with whichit was conceived. Two mainissues reflllf ect this dissonancebetwwwt een thought and action.

Firstly, by the financeminister’s own admission,the collateral-free loans aresupposed to help 4.5 millionenterprises and the subordi-nate debt is supposed to helpanother 200,000 units. All inall, the move is said to benefit4.7 million enterprises. Thatnumber represents only 7.5%of the total number of MSMEsin the country. Even assumingthat the initiatives are targetedmainly toward the Small andMedium Enterprises (SME)section, they still constitute amere 0.5% of the larger MSMEuniverse. As far as employmentis concerned, SMEs are esti-mated to provide 40% of thetotal MSME jobs. Despite goodintentions, therefore, these in-itiatives will still fail to aid themajorityyyt of the MSMEs in thecountry.

Secondly, and most im-portantly, it is not a crisis ofliquidity that is plaguing theeconomic environment. Evenif it were, the RBI’s significantrepo and reverse repo rate cutsis enough to patch that wound.The current crisis, for whichthe sudden and long Covid-19lockdown is the immediatereason, is an extension of theinheritance of “record levels oflowdemand”fromthepre-Cov-id-19 months. As stated by theRBI and the State Bank of In-dia on numerous occasions re-garding the decline in lending,it is not that the banks have afunds crunch. Rather, they arewary of loan repayment de-faults. This wariness is simplydue to the prevailing state oflow demand in the economywhich threatens the health ofall businesses. The banks’hesi-tation to lend is warranted. Thebanks are simply ‘too big to fail’in our economy. This warinessresulted in the demonisation ofthe SBI and its chairperson bythe finance minister.

The current scenario lookseerily similar to the weeks andmonths following the Novem-ber 8, 2016 demonetisation,except for the liquidityyyt factor.Prior to demonetisation, theeconomy enjoyed a comforta-blelevelofdemandand,togobygovernnnr mentfiiif gures,anenviablerate of real GDP growtttw h. How-ever, demonetisation caused asudden contraction in demandthat in turn led to a contractionin various economic activities.This contraction was most se-

vere in the case of MSMEs (seeRBI’s ‘Macroeconomic ImpactofDemonetisation,2017;AnnnA nu-al Report, 2018).

Following demonetisation,employers could not pay theiremployees, nor could theymaintain production due torising inventories. Althoughthe situation improved later,demand never returned tothe pre-November 2016 lev-els. It is this disastrous effectof demonetisation that Modi2.0 inherited from Modi 1.0,and which continues to hauntthe economy even today. Now,just as then, the MSMEs andtheir workforces – the migrantworkers – are bearing the worstbrunt of low demand in theeconomy.

Migrants and MSMEsThe mishandling of the mi-grant communities, who workmainly as daily wage labourersin various pockets of the coun-try, has led to a streak of tragicdeaths and disappearances oflabourers as they trail towardstheir hometowns.

“Covid-19isheretostay,”saidtheWorldHealth Organisationexactly on the day the financeminister belatedly addressedthe plight of the migrant la-bourer community. A largechunk of the migrant workersare returning to the Northand East of the country, to thestates of Uttar Pradesh, Biharand West Bengal. These threestates accountfor33% oftheto-tal number of MSMEs in India,according to the 73rd round ofNSSO 2015-16 report.

If we stop talking in euphe-misms for a moment, we cansay that the first ‘M’ in MSMEexists because of the failureof successive governments inproviding formal sector jobsto those who are now involvedin the ‘Micro’ enterprises. It isa poor alternative for properemployment, but it is employ-ment, nonetheless. Micro en-terprises constitute more than99% of the total MSMEs. Themigrants who made it to theirhometowns alive can only hopeto be absorbed into the Microenterprises category as theSmall and Medium enterpriseshave already fired, and still con-tinue to fire, their employees.In this situation, the reformsand support toward MSMEsshould have gravitated moretowards Micro enterprisesthan the SMEs. The recentdevelopments are akin to theclassic situation of puncturingthe lifeboat after having sunkthe ship.

Way forwardThe loans will only delay theinevitable -- economic con-traction. Instead, what mightgive better relief to the MSMEsmight be interest waiver for,say, four months since thelockdown was imposed. But toreally prevent the inevitable,the government would be welladvised to do all in its powerto increase demand, even if itmeans transferring cash di-rectly to the poor. Kickstartingstalled infrastructure projectsand initiating new ones willalso aid migrant labourers. Infact, that will prop up demandand infrastructure in one shot.The government need notbother itself with criticismsabout crowding out private in-vestment since there is nearlyno private investment to beginwith anywwwy ay.

(The writer is AdjunctProfessor, Department ofCommerce, Economics andManagement, PES University,Bengaluru)

Enthusiasticmiiim sdiiid agnnng osis,

erroneousprescription

No space for migrantworkers and the

majorityyyt of MSMEsin the Covid-19 relief

lifeboat

CHETHAN DHARMANAND

The Covid-19 lockdown has se-riously affected the livelihoodoptions for migrant workers

and daily wage-earners. While thegovernment has announced that theywill be given free ration even if they arenot linked with local fair price shop(FPS), part of the Public DistributionSystem, which is the case with most mi-grant workers across India includingthe brick kiln workers in Kanpur andother places, the ground realityyyt is verydifferent. Families with ration cards arediscovering that a number of units fromtheir ration cards have been struck off,reducing their quota of ration; thosewithout ration cards are finding it dif-ficult to get them made; and those whoare fortunate enough to get ration cardsmade are being told by the FPS ownersthat they will start getting their rationonly after three months, the periodduring which 5 kg of free ration is to bedistributed per person.

Even after two months of the un-precedented lockdown, there are no ar-rangements for the benefit of strandedmigrant workers in the country. Withno means to go back to their respec-tive villages, having lost their informalsector jobs and left with no means toearn a livelihood, the migrant workersand their families, including youngchildren, have been forced to walk thehighways from Maharashtra, Gujarat,Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, etc., to theirhomes in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar andelsewhere.

Did Prime Minister Narendra Modinot have an idea of the problems themillions of migrant workers were goingto face when he imposed the lockdownwith four hours’ notice, asked peopleto stay at home and to clap and bangvessels and light lamps from their bal-conies? He asked owners of private en-terprises to continue paying salariesduring the period of the lockdown. Thatmost businessmen, who happily par-ticipated in the clapping and lightinglamps on a call by the same Prime Min-ister, didn’t heed his call to pay salariesto their employees is obvious from the

mass exodus from cities and industrialcentres.

When it became unbearable to stayin small closeted spaces with morepeople than could be accommodated,with no income for weeks, people be-came desperate and poured out on tothe roads. The fear of dying of hungerand claustrophobia was gnawing morethan the threat of coronavirus. The gov-ernment, which should have arrangedtransport for them in the first place, wascaught unawares. It vacillated betwwwt eenkeeping them confined in camps andletting them go home. Apprehensiveof a workers’revolt, it continued to playhide and seek. We are already witnessto scenes of violent clashes between

workers and police trying to containthem. The police were getting confus-ing signals from the top. The result wastotal mismanagement. The tragedy ofmigrant workers in transit is a uniquelyIndian phenomenon and hence pointsto the utter ineptitude of the govern-ment.

Truth is also emerging that the gov-ernment was under pressure from thecapitalist class not to let the workers re-turn home for fear that it would result inlabour shortages, which would hit theiroperations. Some in Gujarat went as faras to suggest that punitive action shouldbe taken against migrant workers whoreturned to their villages. Not willing togrant workers any rights or enter intoany long term written contracts withthem to offer any kind of social secu-rityyyt in the best of times, the owners ofprivate companies now want to treatthem like bonded labourers. Whileunwilling to be held accountable bythe government or society for theirresponsibilities towards their workers,

the capitalist class now wants to holdworkers hostage. Hence the govern-ment did not show the kind of alacrityyyt inhelping the migrant workers go homethat they did in transporting studentsfrom the coaching factories of Kota orpilgrims from Gujarat visiting Harid-war and Varanasi. This compoundedthe tragedy.

First, when the police would not al-low them to travel by road, the workerstook the rail tracks route. It was onlyafter the accident near Aurangabadin Maharashtra on May 8 in which atrain ran over 16 workers, killing themin their sleep, that authorities allowedthem to travel by road, too. Workerstook whatever vehicle they could man-age -- bicycles, motorcycles, hitchingrides on trucks, and autorickshawsfrom Mumbai and Delhi going intothe hinterlands. Police reversed policyagain after the Auraiya road accidentin which 25 people were killed on May16, disallowing road travel again. Thistime, the migrant workers had no op-tion but to sneak through agriculturalfields and remote internal roads. Evenpeople engaged in relief operationswere finding it difficult to reach help tothe needy travellers avoiding the police.The common people had to struggle onthree fronts simultaneously -- the threatof coronavirus, the scare of death byhunger and exhaustion, and the high-handed ways of the government.

The government should have antic-ipated the sheer numbers of workersstranded and accordingly arrangedtrains and other transport facilities forthem to reach their villages as they havea right to life and dignity just like themiddle class and the rich of the coun-try. If the government could not do itbefore imposing the lockdown due tolack of foresight, they could do it evennow to alleviate the pain and sufferingof millions.

Immediate propertransportation fa-cilities, preferably by trains with feederbus services, mobile medical facilitiesfor the migrant workers, hygienic, com-fortable accommodation with food andwater while they are in transit and be-fore they reach their homes should bearranged by the government.

The government should make it clearwhether the pompous sounding ‘VandeBharat’ programme is meant only forIndians stranded abroad or does it havea plan to rescue migrant workers in thecountry, too?

(VVV( ijaya Ramachandran is an activistbased in Kanpur; Pandey is with the So-cialist Party (India), Lucknow)

MIGRANT WORKERS’ ENDLESS SUFFERING

No ‘Vande Bharat’ for themHas the govtttv been actingat the behest of business

and industryyyr in preventingmigrant workers from

returning to their villages?

Our readers are welcome to email letters to:letters@deccanherald.co.in (only lettersemailed — not handwritten — will be accepted).All letters must carry the sender’s postaladdress and phone number.

COMMENT6 DECCANNNA HERAAAR LLLA DFriday

May 22, 2020

MEHR GANDHICyclone AmmmA phan has leftttf behind a trail of staggeringdestruuur ction across Odisha, West Bengal and Bang-ladesh. The extttx remely severe cyclonic storm, with

winds gusting up to 185 kmmmk per hour, uprooted trees andflllf attttt ened hundreds of villages across the nortttr hern Bay ofBengal coast. Bengal suffered the worst of AmmmA phan’s fuuuf ryyyr .The 24 Parganas (Nortttr h and South) have been badly hitwhilelargepartttr sofKolkataareinruuur ins.Within45minutesof rain, Kolkata went under water. Buildings, telephonelines and electrical pylons were brought down. Kolkataairportttr has suffered severe damage. Cyclone AmmmA phan issaid to be the most severe cyclone to hit India’s east coastsince the 1999 ‘super cyclone’that devastated Odisha andclaimed the lives of 10,000 people. AmmmA phan has claimedthe lives of 72 people in Bengal. The relatively low fatalityyytfigures can be attttt ributed to the massive evacuation effortttr spreceding the cyclone’s arrival. Some 658,000 peopleliving along the coast were evacuated in West Bengal andOdishaintheruuur n-uptothecycloneandtakentosaferareas.However,thelowfatalityyyt figuresshouldnotlullauthoritiesinto underestimating Amphan’s destruction. These areearly reports. Lines of communication are down and itwill be weeks before we have a bettttt er idea of the death and

destruction caused, especially inremote ruuur ral areas.

AmmmA phan has barrelled into IndiawhenthecountryisstrugglingwithCovid-19. The pandemic will se-verely impact rescue, recovery andrehabilitationeffortttr s.Thepandem-ic’s impact was felt on evacuationefforts; apparently thousands ofpeople refused to be evacuated asthey feared crowding in govern-ment shelters. The need for socialdistancing will require rescue cen-tres to house fewer people. Howwill Bengal cope? Can health infra-

structure, which is already creaking under the strain ofCovid-19, be able to fight other epidemics likely to breakout in the wake of the flllf ooding of Kolkata?

The Narendra Modi government has been feudingwith the West Bengal government for some years now.Their sparring has worsened in recent weeks over theseverityyyt of the coronavirus outbreak in West Bengal. Itcannot be allowed to continue into the post-Amphanperiod. West Bengal needs massive financial and othersupport from the Centre. While Prime Minister Modi isset to take an aerial survey of Bengal on Friday, what willbe watched is whether or not his government generouslysupports Bengal at this time.The state is setfor Assemblyelections next year and the BJP and TMC are set to havea nastyyyt electoral battle. But their pettyyyt politics and elec-toral ambitions must not cast a shadow on post-Ammphanrebuilding of West Bengal.

Centrrrt e mustasssa sistBengal rebuiiiu llli d

Amphan hasdevastatedKolkata, 24Paraganasdistrict

VIJAYA RAMACHANDRAN &SANDEEP PANDEY

E S T A B L I S H E D 1 9 4 8

Sangh postures remind PM ofHitler’s racismNew Delhi May 21Prime Minister Indira Gandhi saidtoday that democracy was facingdanger in India because a section of themajorityyyt communityyyt would like certainminorities to change in a particularway. “Democracy cannot mean thatthere should be any regimentation.It does not even mean one group ofpeople should say that others shouldchange Mrs. Gandhi said. She wasinaugurating a seminar on “Socialismthrough democracy”, organized by theInstitute of Democracy and Socialism.

Dissidents ignored Sonia’sadviiiv ce, claims KarunakaranThiruvananthapuram, May 21Senior Congress(I) leader and CWCmember K Karunakaran, todayclaimed that the dissidents had electeda new partyyyt president, disregardingthe advice of Mrs Sonia Gandhi againstsuch a step.Speaking at a meeting organized by theDCC(I) in connection with the fourthdeath anniversary of Mr Rajiv Gandhi,he said it was strange the dissidentswere using the names of MahatmaGandhi in their attempts to weaken theCongress(I).

50 YEARS AGO: MAY 22, 1970 25 YEARS AGO: MAY 22, 1995

OUR PAGES OF HISTORY

PANORAMA

Is any panic more primitive than the oneprompted by the thought of emptyyyt grocerystore shelves? Is any relief more primitive

than the one provided by comfort food?Most everyone has been doing more cooking

these days, more documenting of the cooking,and more thinking about food in general. Thecombination of meat shortages and PresidentTrump’s decision to order slaughterhousesopen despite the protestations of endangeredworkers has inspired many Americans to con-sider just how essential meat is.

Is it more essential than the lives of the work-ing poor who labour to produce it? It seems so.An astonishing six out of 10 counties that theWhite House itself identified as coronavirushot spots are home to the very slaughterhousesthe president ordered open.

In Sioux Falls, S.D., the Smithfield porkplant, which produces some 5% of the coun-try’s pork, is one of the largest hot spots in thenation. A Tyson plant in Perry, Iowa, had 730cases of the coronavirus — nearly 60% of its em-ployees. At another Tyson plant, in Waterloo,Iowa, there were 1,031 reported cases amongabout 2,800 workers.

Sick workers mean plant shutdowns, whichhas led to a backlog of animals. Some farmersare injecting pregnant sows to cause abor-tions. Others are forced to euthanize their an-imals, often by gassing or shooting them. It’sgotten bad enough that Senator Chuck Grass-ley, an Iowa Republican, has asked the Trumpadministration to provide mental health re-sources to hog farmers.

Despite this grisly realityyyt — and the widelyreported effects of the factory-farm indus-try on America’s lands, communities, animalsand human health long before this pandemichit — only around half of Americans say theyare trying to reduce their meat consumption.Meat is embedded in our culture and personalhistories in ways that matter too much, fromthe Thanksgiving turkey to the ballpark hotdog. Meat comes with uniquely wonderfulsmells and tastes, with satisfactions that can al-most feel like home itself. And what, if not thefeeling of home, is essential?

And yet, an increasing number of peoplesense the inevitabilityyyt of impending change.

Animal agriculture is now recognized as aleading cause of global warming. Accordingto The Economist, a quarter of Americans be-twwwt een the ages of 25 and 34 say they are vege-tarians or vegans, which is perhaps one reasonsales of plant-based “meats” have skyyyk rocketed,with Impossible and Beyond Burgers availa-ble everywwwy here from Whole Foods to WhiteCastle. Our hand has been reaching for thedoorknob for the last few years. Covid-19 haskicked open the door.

At the very least it has forced us to look.When it comes to a subject as inconvenient asmeat, it is tempting to pretend unambiguousscience is advocacy, to find solace in exceptionsthat could never be scaled and to speak aboutour world as if it were theoretical.

Some of the most thoughtful people I knowfind ways not to give the problems of animalagriculture any thought, just as I find ways toavoid thinking about climate change and in-come inequalityyyt , not to mention the paradoxes

in my own eating life. One of the unexpectedside effects of these months of sheltering inplace is that it’s hard not to think about thethings that are essential to who we are.

We cannot protect our environment whilecontinuing to eat meat regularly. This is nota refutable perspective, but a banal truism.Whether they become Whoppers or boutiquegrass-fed steaks, cows produce an enormousamount of greenhouse gas. If cows were a coun-try, they would be the third-largest greenhousegas emitter in the world.

Accordingtotheresearch directorof ProjectDrawdown — a nonprofit organization dedi-cated to modeling solutions to address climatechange — eating a plant-based diet is “the mostimportant contribution every individual canmake to reversing global warming.”

Americans overwhelmingly accept the sci-ence of climate change. A majorityyyt of both Re-publicans and Democrats say that the UnitedStates should have remained in the Paris cli-mate accord. We don’t need new information,and we don’t need new values. We only need towalk through the open door.

We cannot claim to care about the humanetreatment of animals while continuing to eat

meat regularly. The farming system we rely onis woven through with misery. Modern chick-ens have been so genetically modified thattheir very bodies have become prisons of paineven if we open their cages. Turkeys are bredto be so obese that they are incapable of repro-ducing without artificial insemination. Mothercows have their calves ripped from them be-fore weaning, resulting in acute distress we canhear in their wails and empirically measurethrough the cortisol in their bodies.

We cannot protect against pandemics whilecontinuing to eat meat regularly. Much atten-tion has been paid to wet markets, but factoryfarms, specifically poultry farms, are a moreimportant breeding ground for pandemics.Further, the C.D.C. reports that three out offour new or emerging infectious diseases arezoonotic —the resultofour broken relationshipwith animals. It goes without saying that wewant to be safe. We know how to make our-selves safer. But wanting and knowing are notenough.

These are not my or anyone’s opinions, de-spite a tendency to publish this information inopinion sections. And the answers to the mostcommon responses raised by any serious ques-

tioning of animal agriculture aren’t opinions.Don’t we need animal protein? No.

We can live longer, healthier lives withoutit. Most American adults eat roughly twwwt ice therecommended intake of protein — includingvegetarians, who consume 70 % more thanthey need. People who eat diets high in animalprotein are more likely to die of heart disease,diabetes and kidney failure. Of course, meat,like cake, can be part of a healthy diet. But nosound nutritionist would recommend eatingcake too often. If we let the factory-farm systemcollapse, won’t farmers suffer? No.

The corporations that speak in their namewhile exploiting them will. There are fewerAmerican farmers today than there were dur-ing the Civil War, despite America’s populationbeing nearly 11 times greater. This is not an acci-dent,but abusinessmodel.Theultimatedreamof the animal-agriculture industrial complex isfor “farms” to be fully automated. Transition-ing toward plant-based foods and sustainablefarming practices would create many morejobs than it would end.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask a farmer if heor she would be happy to see the end of factoryfarming. Isn’t a movement away from meatelitist? No.

A 2015 study found that a vegetarian diet is$750 a year cheaper than a meat-based diet.People of color disproportionately self-identifyyyfas vegetarian and disproportionately are vic-tims of factory farming’s brutalityyyt . The slaugh-terhouse employees currently being put at risktosatisfyyyf ourtastefor meatareoverwhelminglybrown and black. Suggesting that a cheaper,healthier, less exploitative way of farming iselitist is in fact a piece of industry propaganda.

Can’t we work with factory-farming corpo-rations to improve the food system? No. Well,unless you believe that those made powerfulthrough exploitation will voluntarily destroythe vehicles that have granted them spec-tacular wealth. Factory farming is to actualfarming what criminal monopolies are toentrepreneurship. If for a single year the gov-ernment removed its $38-billion-plus in propsand bailouts, and required meat and dairy cor-porations to play by normal capitalist rules, itwould destroythemforever. Theindustrycouldnot survive in the free market.

Perhaps more than any other food, meatinspires both comfort and discomfort. Thatcan make it difficult to act on what we knowand want. Can we really displace meat from thecenter of our plates? This is the question thatbrings us to the threshold of the impossible. Onthe other side is the inevitable.

With the horror of pandemic pressing frombehind, and the new questioning of what isessential, we can now see the door that wasalways there. As in a dream where our homeshave rooms unknown to our waking selves, wecan sense there is a better way of eating, a lifecloser to our values. On the other side is notsomething new, but something that calls fromthe past — a world in which farmers were notmyttty hs, tortured bodies were not food and theplanet was not the bill at the end of the meal.One meal in front of the other, it’s time to crossthe threshold. On the other side is home.

International New York Times

That the Prime Minister should hold acomprehensive meeting (on May 1)to review civil aviation revival strat-

egies when other Covid-19-related crisesalready seemed overwhelming is an indi-cation of the portents the establishmentsees over the Indian skies. The attendanceof the home minister and the finance min-ister of state in addition to the Civil Avia-tion minister at the meeting underscoresthe criticalityyyt of the sector.

Before the onslaught of Covid-19, Indiawas the fastest growing aviation marketin the world and had had a 54-month runof double-digit passenger growth, racingtowards becoming the third largest avia-tion market in the world. Shockingly, lastmonth, the International Air TransportAssociation (IATA) estimated that Indianaviation would see a 47% fall in passengerdemand. That would translate into a lossof $11 billion (around Rs 77,000 crore) inpassenger revenue for airlines. Two mil-lion jobs are in jeopardy in aviation and

allied sectors in India, according to IATA,which has strongly recommended robustgovernment support so that the sector canlimp back to normal.

Except for sporadic cargo transporta-tion, all flllf ights have been grounded sinceMarch 24 when a lockdown till April 14was announced. Airlines assumed thatthey would be flllf ying again from April 15and kept selling tickets to customers eagerto get back to their homes. The successivelockdown extensions to May 3, May 17 andnow May 31 have meant that they still can-not get off the ground. There is a tussleon (the Supreme Court is now seized ofthe matter) betwwwt een passengers who aremiffed that airlines are resisting refund-ing air fares in respect of their cancelledflllf ights and the cash-strapped airlines whoare using all stratagems to hang on to themoneys received by them.

The reasons are not hard to guess.According to informed estimates, thecashflllf ow of most airlines in the scenariothat existed before Covid-19 hit them wasaround twwwt o months at the most, except In-

digo which may have had cash reserves tolast around six months. Evidently, they donot have the cash to refund the amount col-lected for flllf ights which did not take off be-cause that money would have been spenton fixed costs of the airlines to survive andto evade bankruptcy. By offering to retainthe fare money in credit shell accounts foruse in the future, they are just deferringthe inevitable. Airlines have been forcedto take desperate steps in the face of dwin-dling revenues and no hope of a bail out.

Salary cuts, layoffs, deferred payments forsome of the fixed charges are the normnow, and it is a matter of time before thecracks begin to show. The exit of one ormore airlines from the market altogethercannot be ruled out.

Aviation has been one of the worst-hitsectors and if a total collapse of the sectoris to be averted, government aid is ines-capable. Support for fixed costs (salaries,lease rentals, etc), exemption, reduction orsuspension of airport and infrastructurecharges, lowered excise dutyyyt on aviationfuel and rationalised (reduced) GST re-gime for aviation fuel are crying needs ofairlines at this juncture. The Federation ofIndianChambersofCommerceandIndus-try (FICCI) has approached the govern-ment for a waiver of interests and delayedcharges and accruals to airport operatorsand to provide loan guarantees to airlinesto meet their urgent cashflllf ow needs.

CAPA (Centre For Aviation) India hasopinedthat, given the backdrop of an econ-omy being pummelled by Covid-19-relat-ed impacts, the government is unlikely to

be able to meet any of these expectationsexcept some functional relief by way ofwaivers and moratoriums on liabilitiestoward government entities. Indeed, theRs 20 lakh crore package announced bythe PM, and expounded by the FM, didnot proffer even that. While solving im-mediate cashflllf ow woes of the sector is thesuccour needed, what was revealed was anintent to ease flllf ying restrictions in IndianAir Force space, a desire to make Indiainto a global hub for MRO, and an award ofthree airports for operation in PPP mode.None of these steps, even if they are whollyrealised, will provide any immediate reliefto the haemorrhaging sector.

Amidst all this gloom, there lie opportu-nities, as demonstrated by Austria whichhas proposed environmental conditionsto be met by airlines that seek a bailout.For us, it would be a good idea to heed theadvice of CAPA India that the NationalCivil Aviation Policy (NCAP) be revisedto support the sector during the Covid-19crisis to guide it through its struggle, sta-bilisation and recovery phases. India’s avi-

ation ought to be introspecting on currentopportunities: of learning from the impactof aviation sector slowdown; of using theidle time available with the Ministry ofCivil Aviation and the Director-Generalof Civil Aviation to review the existing reg-ulatory dispensation, especially in areasthat the aviation industry has been clam-ouring about; of marshalling a consensusamongst all states on including aviationfuel under GST regime; and of appraisingand reassessing future infrastructure en-hancement plans in view of the economicdownturn that Covid-19 has inflllf icted onthe nation.

As far as general aviation, includingbusiness aviation, is concerned, the ad-versityyyt imposed by Covid-19 dictates that,amongst other reforms, the governmentshould look at allowing fractional owner-ship of aircraft and permit aircraft man-agement companies to change the sector’sfortunes. Needless to say, the manner inwhich civil aviation is managed throughthis crisis phase will significantly dictatewhat state it emerges in from it.

Civiiiv l aviiiv ation industrrrt yyyr needsurrru gent supportttr to avoid crash landiiid ng

The end of meat is hereAnnnA increasing number of people sense the inevitabilityyyt of impending change

GP CAPT (RETD) A K SACHDEVA

JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

7DECCANNNA HERAAAR LLLA DFridayMay 22, 2020

In Ramayana, at the end of the war,Hanuman visits Sita to convey thenews of Rama’s victory. Sita asks

Hanuman to spare the lives of ‘Rak-shashis’ who had troubled her earlier.When Hanuman is surprised, Sitanarrates the story of the tiger, hunterand bear.

A tiger was in pursuit of a hunter,the latter climbed up a tree to escapefrom the feline. There was a bearalready perched upon a bough of thetree. When the tiger made it to thefoot of the tree, he addressed the bear,“Look, both of us are denizens of theforest and the hunter is our commonenemy. Therefore knock him down

from the tree”. The bearreplied, “Having reachedmy abode, the hunter is ina way seeking asylum withme. So I am not going tohurl him down”. Sayingso, the bear went to sleep.Now the tiger turnedto the hunter and said,“Push the bear down. Iwill offer you protection.” The hunterthereupon pushed the sleeping beardown. The bear however clutched atanother bough and thus escaped fromfalling down.

Now the tiger addressed the bearagain, “See, the hunter sought to

hurl you down, thuswronged you. Now youpush him down”. Thebear replied, “I willnot at any cost repayevil for evil. A superiorperson does not takeinto account the sincommitted againsthim.” So saying Sita

convinces Hanuman to show mercy onher tormentors.

Forgiveness transcends anger andbitterness. It complements freedomand peace. Nelson Mandela saidabout the act of forgiveness, “you willachieve more in this world through

acts of mercy than you will throughacts of retribution.” He was preventedfrom attending the funeral of hismother and his son while he was indetention. Although he was bitter tohave been denied the opportunityyyt tosay final farewell to the people thatmattered so much to him, he said,“resentment is like drinking poisonand then hoping it will kill yourenemies.”

He used forgiveness as a weapontowards the oppressive apartheidregime. Thus by example, he enabledthe transformation of relationships,positive change and peace in hisbeloved country, South Africa.

The act of forgiiig venessOASIS JAYANTHI CHANDRASEKARAN

Covid-19 has uncoveredthe ugly face of our so-cial formations, it has

exposed all the Machiavellianmanoeuvrings we invent on aregular basis to exploit thosewho make our survival pos-sible. Many people see it as asuitable moment to vent theirdeep-seated communal andracist prejudices.

You may actually be able tofight Covid-19 better if you arewell-fed rather than survivingon meagre or no meals forweeks. A small group of elitescall the shots in connivancewith politically powerful acrossthe world.

Those on the margins of so-cietyyyt are the first target. Farm-ers, whom Faiz Ahmed Faizcalled ‘baadshah-e-jahaan’(the king of the world), mustbe named first. We are toldthat our granaries are full andthat we should distribute thegrain rather than let it rot. Weare also told that it costs moreto store it.

Indeed, we should do so--sooner the better. What weare not told is that so manyfarmers can’t have their har-vests cropped even thoughthey are ripe. Rains may ruinthem. The governments wouldrather wait than do a favour tothe farmer. In spite of a seriesof farmer suicides, starvationdeaths and national level pro-tests, the cry of the farmer hasnot been heard. The case of theDalits and tribal communitiesis not very different.

Consider for example thecase of the Sahariyas of theBaran district of Rajasthan.Sahariyas are dependent uponforest (Sahara) for every needincluding livelihood, social life,family and everyttty hing else andhave marginal agricultural in-comes. Under new laws, theyhardly have any control overtheir forests. The governmentschemes planned for the wel-fareofsuchpeoplehardlyreachthemas planned. AnnnA importantscheme like MGNREGA couldbe central to their lives. Theyare supposed to get employ-

ment for 200 days at Rs. 173per day. In practice, they getemploymentforabout100daysonly, in remote blocks such asChhabra,ChhipabardandAnnnA taandMangrol,theworkofMGN-REGA has been discontinuedfor about twwwt o to three years.

Next, we must turn to the‘migrant workers’ and factorylabour who build the bunga-lows and flllf ats we live in and pro-duce all the other essential andnon-essential things we buy butwho are themselves forced tolive in slums such as Dharavi. Itisestimatedthatover60%ofourpopulation lives in such urbanandsemi-urbanslums.Imaginepreaching ‘social distancing’and ‘washing hands with soapseveral times a day’to them. Of-tensixxxi ormorepeoplewillliveina room that at best maybe 10 by8 square feet. This room is theirkitchen,dininghall,livingroomand bedroom. They have prob-lems getting drinking water.How can they maintain socialdistance and wash hands fre-quently? The least the govern-mentcandoistoensureenoughfoodreachesthemandpaytheirrent during this period.

There are then those whoferry us around the cityyyt drivingautos and taxis. We suddenlythought Ola and Uber hadsolved all our problems. Andwhen the lockdown came,the middle class and the richcontinue to get their supplieswhile staying safe. What aboutthe people who normally usedto supply our daily provisionslike fruits, vegetables andgrains? What about those whomaintain our water and sew-erage systems and those maisand bhais who sustained ourhouseholds?

Even for the doctors andmedical staff who are riskingtheir lives on frontlines, wehave been not able to providesufficient safetyyyt gear. What theauthorities have succeeded indoing is to create a sense of fear.We are happy to be tracked andobey diktats. A new world, onethat is worse, is in the making.

(The author retired as Pro-fessor of Linguistics from theUniversity of Delhi.)

On the margiiig ns ofCoviiiv d-19

RAMA KANT AGNIHOTRI

Thhhhhe CCCCentre fffffor Diiiiisease CCCCControlllll, US reports thhhhhat thhhhhree out offfff fffffour new or emergiiiiing iiiiinfffffectiiiiiousdiseases are zoonotic — the result of our broken relationship with animals. THE NEW YORK TIMES

NATION8 DECCANNNA HERAAAR LLLA DFriday

May 22, 2020

CYCLONE MAYHEM: Uprooted trees, toppled lammma p posts annna d snapped power lines littttt er streets

Kolkata, the capital cityyyt ofWest Bengal, on Thurs-dddK ay was dotted with

uprooted trees, toppled lampposts and snapped power lines.Thecityyyt wasbattttt eredbyCycloneAmmmA phanresultiiit ngin15deathsinthecityyyt alone,and72inthestate.

Severalroadswereblockedinthe cityyyt with uprooted trees.

The amount of devastation inthe cityyyt becomes evident fromvisuals of the streets at Chit-taranjan Avenue in Central Kol-kata.Alongstretchoftheroadisstrewnwithuprootedtreeslyingatadistanceofbarely100metersfrom each other.

Similar situuut ation is prevailinginLeninSarani,GaneshAvenuein Central Kolkata and Rash Be-hari Avenue and Patuli in thesouthern partttr of the cityyyt . UrbanDevelopment Minister FirhadHakiiik m said that as per availableinformation 378 trees were up-rooted in the cityyyt .

The streets are littered withsnapped overhead power linesfor trams and uprooted trafficsignals. At several places, treesfell on parked vehicles crum-plingthemliketiiit ncans.AtHajra,anuprootedlamppostwasseen

perilously leaning on a snappedpower line. Fortunately thepower supply in the area wasdisconnectedasaprecautionaryyyrmeasure.

Several areas of the cityyyt arewithoutpowersinceWednesdaynight. Mobile communicationhasalsobeenseverelydisruuur pted.

AmmmA phan inflllf icts heavyyyv damage on Kolkkkl ataSOUMYA DAS

KOLKATA, DHNS

Lekhhhk akBesboruuur ahhailingfrom Dibrugarh districtin Assam was busy sup-

plying fish at a supermarketin Kochi on Thursday whileRajendra Naik from Kand-hamal in Odisha, who workswith a plywwwy ood factory at Pe-rumbavoor in the rural partsof Ernakulam district, is nowworking with the helpline formigrant workers at Ernaku-lam district collectorate.

With lockdown norms be-ing relaxed and shops func-tioning, many migrant work-ers in Kerala have resumedtheir jobs and prefer to stayback.

A recent study by Odis-ha-based community devel-opment organisaiton GramVikas and Kerala-basedNGO, Centre for Migrationand Inclusive Development(CMID), among the migrantworkers from Odisha in dif-ferent states found that evenas around 75% migrant work-ers want to return to their na-tive places owing tolockdown,over 40% plan to return with-in three to six months. Over10% wished to stay back.About 45% of migrant work-ers from Odisha are in Kerala.

Of the around four lakh mi-grant workers in over 20,000

labour camps in Kerala, so far42,230 have returned to theirnative places, the maximumbeing from Bihar, 11,157.

Rosid Ahammed fromHojai in Assam, who worksata vegetable shop in Ernaku-lam, told DH over phone thatat least 75% of the migrantworkers, including Assamese,now want to go to their nativeplaces. No trains were oper-ated from Kerala to Assam sofar and hence they were un-able to go. But most of themmight return to Kerala aftersometime owing to the lucra-tive job scenario, said Rosid,who prefers to stay back.

CMID executive directorBenoy Peter said that thepresent urge of migrants toreturn to their native plac-es is mainly an emotionallycharged desire. The ensu-ing monsoon season whichcaused flllf oods earlier could bealso a cause for concern. Butowing to the financial distressof their families in their nativeplaces as well as the attractivejob scenario in Kerala, manywould possibly be returningin due course.

A migrant worker in Keralaearns an average of Rs 15,000per month.

About 50% of migrantworkers in Kerala work inshops and establishments,while the remaining are dailylabourers.

ARJUN RAGHUNATHTHIRUVANANTHAPURAM,

DHNS

Many migrantsprefer to stay back

in Kerala,restart work

The Centre is continuouslymonitoring the situationin Amphan-hit West

Bengal and Odisha with PrimeMinister Narendra Modi onThursday saying no stone willbe left unturned in helping theaffected people as efforts areon to restore normal activities.

West Bengal informed theCentre that there were majordamages to agriculture, powerand telecommunication facili-ties in cyclone-hit areas.

Home Minister Amit Shahdialled Odisha CM NaveenPatnaik and his West Bengalcounterpart Mamata Banerjeeto offer “all possible help”evenas National Crisis Manage-ment Committee headed byCabinet Secretary Rajiv Gaubatook stock of the situation withtop central and state officials.

“Have been seeing visualsfrom West Bengal on the dev-astation caused by CycloneAmphan. In this challenginghour, the entire nation standsin solidarityyyt with West Bengal.

Praying for the well-being ofthe people of the state. Effortsare on to ensure normalcy. Nostone will be left unturned inhelping the affected,” Moditweeted. Shah said the Cen-tre was “closely monitoring”the cyclone Amphan and are

in continuous touch with con-cerned authorities.

Following the forecast byIndian Meteorological De-partment, West Bengal hadevacuated five lakh people andOdisha twwwt o lakh with the helpof NDRF.

This has resulted in a mini-mal loss to human lives, consid-ering the fact that the intensityyytof the Amphan was next only tothat of the super cyclone thatstruck Odisha in 1999 causinglarge scale devastation, an offi-cial statement said.

No stone wiiiw llli l be leftttf unnnu tuuut rrru ned to help states: ModiiidSHEMIN JOY

NEW DELHI, DHNS

A man cuts branches of an uprooted treein Kolkata on Thursday. REUTERS

An elderly woman tries to salvage her house that collapsed during Cyclone Amphan, in North24 Parganas. PTI

(L) Mangled remains of a bus after a tree fell on it during Cyclone Amphan in Kolkata; (R) Children lay out their wet textbooks to dry in East Midnapore, West Bengal, on Thursday. PTI/AFP

44.8 lakh affected in Odisha,power infra damaged

BHUBANESWAR, PTI: Nearly45 lakh people in Odisha havebeen affected by the extreme-ly severe cyclonic storm Am-phan, which fiercely rolledpast the state coast and madelandfall in the Sunderbans,uprooting trees and flllf atteningfragile dwellings, a senior offi-cial said on Thursday.

The power infrastructureand the farm sector have alsosuffered considerable damage,Chief Secretary A K Tripathysaid. However, officials saidthe telecom infrastructure islargely intact.

The cyclonic storm, whichtriggered heavyyyv rains and ac-companied high-velocityyyt windsgusting up to 190 kmph incoastal areas, made landfall intheSunderbansinWestBengalon Wednesday evening. It hasweakened significantly sincemaking the landfall and movedto Bangladesh as a cyclonic

storm. On Thursday, ChiefSecretary Tripathy attended avideo conference with UnionCabinet Secretary Rajiv Gau-ba and informed him about thedamage caused by Amphan.

He said the cyclone has af-fected over 44.80 lakh peoplein 1,500-gram panchayats, de-spite the Odisha governmentevacuating around two lakhpeople from vuuuv lnerable areasahead of the landfall.

Tripathy said the restora-tion work is in underway ona war-footing, particularly inJagatsinghpur, Kendrapara,Bhadrak and Balasore, androad connectivityyyt is likely to berestored shortly.

But it will take a day or twwwt o tofully restore the power supply,he said.

Revenue Minister SudamMarndi said about one lakhhectares of standingcrops havebeen damaged.

NEW DELHI, DHNS: Around4.10 lakh stranded migrantworkers are still waiting toleave Delhi in special trainsand buses arranged by thegovernment displaying theireagerness to be in their vil-lages as they stare at an un-certain future despite thelockdown restrictions beingeased and economic activi-ties slowly picking up.

Around 80,000-90,000people have left the capitalin over 70 ‘Shramik’ specialtrains and as many busessince May 7 but another 4.10lakh, including 3.80 lakhfrom UP and Bihar, haveregistered with the Delhigovernment portal seekinga journey to their homes.

4.1 L migrantsin Delhi waitingfor trains, buses

NEW DELHI, DHNS: The BarCouncil of India (BCI) hasexpressed its dissatisfactionwith the functioning of vir-tual courts across the coun-try after the lockdown wasimposed in March.

It claimed the public andadvocates are in dark as towhat is happening in courtsacross the country.

BCI unhappy withvirtual courtsKerala-returnedmigrantsgettailor-madejobsinBihar

When migrant workers likeMohammad Hakim and Mo-hammad Kamal lost their job inKerala and retuuut rned to their na-tive place Purnia, Bihar, by spe-cial train early this month, theyhad not anticipated they will getajobintheirhomestatesosoon.

On the eve of Eid, they pro-fuuuf selythank‘AlllA lah’tohavegiventhem employment in the sectorin which they have experience.Kamal, Hakiiik m and 71 other mi-grants from Kerala, after theirskill mapping, have been em-ployedbytheBihargovernmenttopreparethree-layeredmasks.

“These migrant workers,who retuuut rned from Kerala, had

knnnk owledgeoftailoring.So,aftttf ertheycompletedtheirquarantiiit neperiod, their skiiik ll mapping wasdone. Adept at tailoring, theyhave been engaged to preparethree-layermasks,”saidDistrictMagistrate of Purnia, RahulKumar.

The government officials ex-pect around 1,500 masks wouldbe prepared everyyyr day, thereby

making each of these migrantworkers eligible for payment ofRs 600 daily as their remuner-ation.

“At a time when people arelosing their job amid Covid-19crisis, we are really fortttr uuut nate tohave got employment, that tooa job of our choice in which wehaveanexpertttr ise,”said20-year-old Kamal, adding that “hence-

forth, we will never go outsideBihar in search of jobs.”

Over 2,000 migrants in Pur-nia, who have completed theirmandatory quarantine period,havebeenengagedbytheNitishKumarregimeindiggingpondsorplantingtrees/saplingsunderthe chief minister’s ambitiousenvironmental scheme ‘Jal Ji-wan Hariyali’.

ABHAY KUMARPATNA, DHNS

NEW DELHI, DHNS: In thewake of the Covid-19 out-break, Deputyyyt Shahi Imamof Jama Masjid Syed ShabanBukhari on Thursday ap-pealedtothepeopletorefrainfrom any mass gathering, re-ligious or celebratoryyyr , at anytimeduriiir ngtheholymonthofRamzaan, especially on Eid.

The initia-tive is aimedto ensure thehealth andsafetyyyt of thepeople in thelight of thep a n d e m i candisalignedwith the so-

cial distancing guidelines asmandatedbythegovernnnr ment,the deputyyyt Shahi Imam said.

“As per the instructionsissued by one of the larg-est mosques in India, eachmember of the communityyytis advised to offer prayers forJamat-ul-Vida and Eid al-Fitrfromtheirhomesasitwillsig-nificantly help to alleviate thethreat of viral transmissionfrom spreading furtttr her,” thedeputyyyt Imam said in a state-ment here.

He also asked the com-munityyyt to help those in needduring this time of crisis as anintegral part of the Islamiccultuuut re.

“We cannot allow any con-gregations in courtttr yyyt ards andparks as it will expose peopleto an increased risk of con-tracting the viruuur s. Hence, weurge you to offer holy prayersof Jamat-ul-Vida, Namaz-e-Eid from your homes,” thedeputyyyt imam said.

Refrain frommass gathering

on Eid: JamaMasjid Dy Imam As domestic flllf ights re-

sume on Monday aftertttA wwwt o months, airlines will

have to sell tickets within theprice band prescribed by thegovernment depending on theduration of air travel.

The government has de-cided to set an upper limit fordomestic air fares to avoid asharp spike in ticket prices anda lower limit to ensure that theairlines remain viable, CivilAviation Minister HardeepSingh Puri told reporters here.

Limits on air fare have beenset in seven bands as per theflllf ight durations and would bein place for a three month peri-od till August 24, Puri said add-ing that the “realistic” prices

were arrived at after studyingcorresponding rail fares.

A Delhi-Bengaluru flllf ightwill come under price bandfive ranging from Rs 4,500 toRs 13,000, while a Bengalu-ru-Mumbai journey will comeunder price band three with

fares ranging from Rs 3,000to Rs 9,000.

One-third capacityPuri said that the flllf ight opera-tions will resume between allcities from next week, albeitwith only one third of the ca-

pacity approved during thesummer schedule 2020.

A Delhi-Mumbai air ticketwould cost anywwwy here betwwwt eenRs 3,500 and Rs 10,000, withan obligation on the airline tosell 40% of the seats at less thanthe midpoint of the price bandfixed by the government.

“The midpoint for the Del-hi-Mumbai price band is Rs6,700. So, 40% of the tickets

have to be sold at a price lessthan Rs 6,700.

This is how we are ensuringthat the fares do not go out ofcontrol,” Civil Aviation Sec-retary Pradeep Kharola said,adding that these fares wereexcluding GST, PassengerService Fee and User Devel-opment Fee.

Airlines have already startedbookings for flllf ights.

Govtttv fiiif xxxi es price bands for air fares for 3 monthsSAGAR KULKARNINEW DELHI, DHNS

Syed ShabanBukhari

Kolkkl ataat aiia rri ppr orttrbadlld yhiih t

The Kolkata Airport wasbadly hit by the storm.With the wind speedgoing up to 133 km perhour in the area andheavyyv rainfall, the runwayand several hangers werewaterlogged. Severalglass window panes at theterminals were shattered.All fllf ight operationswere suspended till 5 amon Thursday. However,the airport resumedoperation at Thursdaynoon with a Russianchartered plane landingat 14:31 hours to evacuatestranded Russians.“Firstdeparture was SpiceJetcargo fllf ight for Delhi,”stated an airport release.

COVID-19 TrackerStates/UT Infected Death States/UT Infected Death

3,583TOTAL DEATH

TOLL

48,527TOTAL

RECOVERED

1,18,088

65,978

TOTALINFECTED

TOTAL ACTIVE CASES

Maharashtra 41,642 1454Tamil Nadu 13,967 95Gujarat 12,910 773Delhi 11,659 194Rajasthan 6,227 151Madhya Pradesh 5,981 270Uttar Pradesh 5,515 138West Bengal 3,197 259Andhra Pradesh 2,605 54Punjab 2,028 39Bihar 1,900 10Telangana 1,699 45Karnataka 1,605 41J&K 1,449 20Odisha 1,103 7Haryana 1,031 15

Kerala 690 3Jharkhand 281 3Chandigarh 216 3Assam 203 4Tripura 173 0Uttarakhand 146 1Himachal Pradesh 137 3Chhattisgarh 126 0Goa 52 0Ladakh 44 0Andaman Nicobar 33 0Others 66 1

DHNS/PTI (10:00 PM, MAY 21)A barber in protective gear attends to a customer at his shop

in Surat on Thursday. PTI

More trrt aiia nni ssn to resummu e: GoyallaThere will be resumptionof more trains comingdays, Union RailwayMinister Piyuuy sh Goyal an-nounced here on Thursdayas the Minister emphasison taking country towardsnormalcy after two-months tough lockdowndue to Covid-19-pandemic.

“We are going to an-nounce the resumption ofmore trains in the comingdays. Time to take Indiatowards normalcy,” Goyalsaid a day after announc-ing the operation of 200long-distance trains witha fixed time table fromJune 1.

Price Bands for Air FaresSection Flight Duration Minimum Maximum

Fare (in RS) Fare(inRS)

1 Less than 40 minutes 2,000 6,0002 Between 40-60 minutes 2,500 7,5003 Between 60-90 minutes 3,000 9,0004 Between 90-120 minutes 3,500 10,0005 Between 120-150 minutes 4,500 13,0006 Between 150-180 minutes 5,500 15,7007 Between 180-210 minutes 6,500 18,600

Key routes from BengaluruDestination Minimum (in Rs) Maximum (in Rs)

Delhi 4,500 13,000

Mumbai, Pune 3,000 9,000

Chennai, Mangaluru 2,000 6,000

Chandigarh, Varanasi 5,500 15,700

NATION 9DECCANNNA HERAAAR LLLA DFridayMay 22, 2020

The United States hasdeported to India an en-gineer, who admitted to

providing financial aid to An-war Al-Awlaki, a key leader ofal Qaeda, in 2009.

Ibrahim Mohammad Zu-bair, who originally hailedfrom Hyderabad in Telangana,pleaded guiltyyyt in a US federalcourt in April 2018 to conceal-ment of financing terrorism.The US deported him to Indiaon May 19. He was quarantinedin a high-security facility inAmritsar soon after his arrivaland wouldbequestioned by thesecurityyyt agencies if and whenhe would be tested and foundnegative for Covid-19, sourcestold the DH on Thursday.

The 40-year-old had beensentencedto60monthsinpris-on by a federal court in Ohio inthe US in April 2018 as agreedupon by him and the prosecu-tors in the plea agreement. Hehad however already spent 30months in prison by then. TheUS court had ordered him to bedeported after completing theremainder of his prison term.

Sources in New Delhi saidthat he would be grilled by theofficials of the securityyyt and in-

telligence agencies to find outif he had any links with terror-ist organisations, which werebased in Pakistan and carriedout attacks in India.

Ibrahim had studied engi-neering at the Universityyyt of Illi-nois Urbana-Champaign from2001 to 2005. He had moved toToledo in Ohio in 2006 and hadmarried a US citizen. He hadbecome a lawful permanentresident of the US in or around2007, according to the JusticeDepartment of the federal gov-ernment of America.

His brother Farooq Moham-mad had given $ 22,000 to anassociate of Al-Awlaki, a keyleader of the al Qaeda in theArabian Peninsula, at Sana’ain Yemen in 2009. Ibrahim hadfacilitated the transfer of themoney overseas for Farooq totake the fund to the associate ofAwlaki in Yemen.

After the Federal Investi-gation Bureau had started theinvestigation, Ibrahim and twwwt oothers, who had contributed tothe fund Farooq had providedto the associate of Al-Awlaki,had attempted to conceal thesource of the money by lyingto investigators and deletingemails related to the transac-tions. They all had been arrest-ed in 2011, along with Farooq.

US deportsT-State engineer

for fiiif nancingal Qaeda leader

ANIRBAN BHAUMIKNEW DELHI, DHNS

Cop killed in J&K militant attackSRINAGAR, DHNS: A day afterthe killing of twwwt o paramilitaryBSF men in militant attackin Srinagar, a policeman waskilled and another injuredin a similar incident in southKashmir’s Pulwama districton Thursday.

Reports said militants firedat a checkpoint of the policeand paramilitary CRPF atPrichoo, Pulwama, 28 km fromhere, in which twwwt o policemenwere wounded.

The injured cops were shift-ed to hospital, but one of themsuccumbed to his injuries.The slain cop was identified asAnnnA oop Singh of Indian ReservePolice (IRP) 10th battalionwhile injured was MohammadIbrahim.

Inspector General Police(IGP), Kashmir, Vijay Kumarwhile confirming the killing ofthe policeman said the area hasbeen cordoned off and furtherinvestigations launched.

HITORI-1508

SOLUTION TO 1507

To solve the puzzle: Eliminatenumbers by filling in squares so thatremaining cells in that row or columndo not repeat that number morethan once. Filled-in cells cannot behorizontally or vertically adjacent.The un-filled cells must form a singlecomponent connected horizontallyand vertically.

SU DO KU X - 1757

SOLUTION TO 1756

To solve the puzzle:The objective is to place thenumbers 1 to 9 in the emptysquares so that each row, eachcolumn, each 3x3 box and eachshaded diagonal line contains thesame number only once.

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTION

KAKURO- 1508

To solve the puzzle:Put a number from 1 through 9 ina cell. No zeros. A number in a cellseparated by diagonal line tellsthe sum of numbers in consecutivecells at its right or downward. Nonumber may appear more thanonce in consecutive cells.

SOLUTION TO 1507

MISCELLANY

(Answers tomorrow)GLORY INEPT RELENT BORDERJumbles:

Answer: The folklore characters wanted to cross the riverbut didn’t want to use the — “TROLL” BRIDGE

Now arrange the circled lettersto form the surprise answer, assuggested by the above cartoon.

THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAMEBy David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek

Unscramble these Jumbles,one letter to each square,to form four ordinary words.

©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLCAll Rights Reserved.

Get t

he fr

ee JU

ST J

UMBL

E ap

p • F

ollow

us o

n Tw

itter @

Play

Jum

ble

HNWIC

NAAGI

RILEDD

TRWHAT

Yesterday’s

hard

Tosolvethepuzzle:Tosolveasu-do-kupuzzle,everydigitfrom1to9mustappearineachofthenineverticalcolumns,ineachoftheninehorizontalrows,andineachofthenineboxes.

SOLUTIONTO 5054

SU-DO-KU-5055

8 12 5 4 3 9

6 25 8 93 4 2

4 7 18 33 2 9 1 75 92 4 9 5 6 1 7 8 35 7 6 3 2 8 4 9 18 1 3 7 4 9 5 2 66 2 8 4 5 7 1 3 94 5 1 8 9 3 2 6 73 9 7 2 1 6 8 4 51 3 5 6 8 4 9 7 29 6 4 1 7 2 3 5 87 8 2 9 3 5 6 1 4

CROSSWORD CHALLENGE 10875

SOLUTIONS TO CROSSWORD 10874

CRYPTICACROSS: 4, For-est. 7, Snowball 8, OC-cult 10, AD-age 13, Rory14, Role 15, Peru 16, Fee 17, Toad 19, Scar 21, Conductor 23,Mons 24, Cu-y-p 26, Ho-W 27, Ahem 29, S-par 32, G-lad 33,D-Ella 34, Barrel 35, Valu-able 36, Treble.DOWN: 1, O-scar 2, To-tal 3, (cap)Able 4, Floo-r 5, Racy 6, Solder9, C-rusty 11, Dot 12, G-Et on 13, Redu-CED 15, Pad 16, Far 18,On sal-e 20, Copse 21, Cow 22, Cum 23, Mohair 25, Hal 28, Hal-V-e 30,Plebs 31,Rates 32,Grub 33,Drum.

EASYACROSS: 4, Accept 7, Turncoat 8, Laptop 10, Blade 13, Baby 14,Sane 15, Pass 16, Air 17, Pair 19, Emit 21, Potential 23, Sett 24,Oils 26, Fat 27, Acne 29, Opal 32, Vile 33, Snipe 34, Shrine 35,Abandons 36, Strain.DOWN: 1, Stubs 2, Urban 3, Oche 4, Atlas 5, Copy 6, Profit 9,Abseil 11, Lay 12, Depot 13, Bar none 15, Pie 16, Ail 18, Attain20, Mason 21, Pet 22, Tie 23, Sachet 25, Cap 28, Clean 30, Pilot31,Least 32,Visa 33,Song.

EASY

CRYPTIC

ACROSS1. Italian city (5)6. Boy’s name (5)9. Causing laughter (7)10. Smell (5)11. Spring plant (5)12. Ludicrous situation (5)13. Burial (7)15. Lie (3)17. Prayer ending (4)18. Breakfast food (6)19. Circular coral reef (5)20. Stockings (6)22. Assistant (4)24. Plaything (3)25. Protected (7)26. Eerie (5)27. Decorate (5)28. Be suitable to (5)29. Empowers (7)30. Stadium (5)31. Anaesthetic (5)

DOWN2. Metallic element (6)3. Insight (6)4. And not (3)5. Rope-making fibre (5)6. School bag (7)7. Hint (4)8. Petty details (6)12. Abstains from eating (5)13. Swoon (5)14. Recently (5)15. Stinking (5)16. Lose blood (5)18. Nimbus (5)19. Feeler (7)21. Over there (6)22. Nab (6)23. Determine (6)25. Snatches (5)26. Songbird (4)28. Insect (3)

ACROSS1 A striking vessel? (5)6 Down below, so it could be better (5)9 Figure the eccentric healer is out of town (2,5)10 Sing creditably with nothing on? (5)11 Farm animals need good fodder (5)12 Figure provided by the house vendor (5)13 As used for recording great times on the river? (7)15 Sing a bit of Schumann (3)17 Does he come before the 1st of March? (4)18 Trouble due to a minor collision? (6)19 I’m foxy about being obsequious! (5)20 He didn’t rule the waves (6)22 Where, on the Continent, most of the French birds

are? (4)24 He and I arrange to hasten forth (3)25 Has a saint to speak thus? (7)26 Starts upsetting the peons (5)27 Concerning the U-boat wreck (5)28 What it is to have a manual (5)29 In a way, love me to be in the show (7)30 An entrance in store (5)31 Where, with a friend, mum could have a holdiay (5)

DOWN2 Is her aim possibly to go to a space station? (6)3 Is it lucky to have an extra leaf? (6)4 Mr Barlow from Ickenham? (3)5 Detests unseemly haste (5)6 Turn and wildly cry out for information of pressing

importance (7)7 Significantly, does it light up in a new way? (4)8 Consumes tea, perhaps, before starting supper (4,2)12 At bargain time around Birkenhead, this is still ex-

pensive (5)13 Though comfortable, gives many a cry of pain (5)14 State a mine may be in (5)15 One gets in the bath, somehow, as a regular thing (5)16 It will measure me a half of bitter (5)18 The little dirty bits (5)19 Poet set to become a classic TV character (7)21 It’s subject to a high rate of inflation (3,3)22 A powerful unit raised on the 1st of October, in

Canada (6)23 It’s not often models get flustered! (6)25 Contradictory points always bring a show of con-

tempt (5)26 To us, possibly, it’s an unsettling thing to do (4)28 A Chopin piece. (It’s a dance) (3)

Blondie

Beetle Bailey

Marvin

Peanuts

Hagar The Horrible

CO M I CS

NATION10 DECCANNNA HERAAAR LLLA DFriday

May 22, 2020

Six Covid-19 positive casesin the congested Rohingyarefugee camps in Bangla-

desh’s Cox’s Bazar this weekhas prompted an alert by in-ternational aid agencies withtheir emergency responseimpacted by the restriction onmobile internet due to “securi-tyyyt reasons.”

“There are serious concernsabout the potentially severeimpact of coronavirus in thedensely populated refugeesettlements sheltering some8,60,000 Rohingya refugees.Another 4,00,000 Bangla-deshis live in the surroundinghost communities. These pop-ulations are considered to beamong the most at risk global-ly. No effort must be spared ifhigher fatality rates are to beavoided in overcrowded siteswith limited health and waterand sanitation infrastructure,”

Andrej Mahecic, spokesper-son of United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) said in a statementemailed to DH.

The first Rohingya refugeetested positive in the Kuta-palong refugee settlement inCox Bazar following which alocal Bangladeshi resident alsotested positive.

Five more refugees alsotested positive subsequently,prompting the UNHRC andother aid agencies to step up ef-forts to prevent further spreadof the deadly virus that haskilled over three lakh peopleacross the globe so far.

“The humanitarian com-munityyyt is taking all preventiveandprecautionarymeasurestomitigate the risks of Covid-19for the people we serve as wellas our own teams, while alsoensuring that critical activitiescontinue in the camps, min-imising the staff footprint inthe camps to the extent possi-ble. Infection prevention andcontrol training have been

provided to staff in health fa-cilities emphasizing measuresto control Covid-19,” LouiseDonovan, communicationofficer of UNHCR stationedin Cox’s Bazar told DH onWednesday.

She, however, said the re-striction on mobile internetby Bangladesh governmentsince September 2019 for “se-curityyyt reasons” was impactingtheir response to contain thespread of Covid-19 in the refu-gee camps.

“Communication is key tothe timely and effective man-agement of this situation andso the restriction on mobiledata communications in therefugee camps should be lift-ed,” Donovan said.

The aid agencies, however,are using radio spots, video,posters, and messages, in Ro-hingya, Burmese and Bengalilanguages, passed by Imamsand other communityyyt leadersand volunteers explaining howthe virus spreads, how peoplecan protect themselves.

Coviiiv d-19 alarm inRohiiih ngyyyg a camps; net

ban adds to woesSUMIR KARMAKARGUWAHATI, DHNS

Priyanka-Yogi tussle moves to social mediaLUCKNOW, DHNS: After‘successfully’ corneringUttar Pradesh Chief Min-ister Yogi Adityanath byher “bus move”, Congressgeneralsecretaryyyr Priiir yankaGandhiVadraonThursdaylaunched a protest againstthe state government onsocial media for what shealleged“ignoriiir ngtheplight

of the migrant workers”and arrest of UP Congresspresident Ajai KumarLallu.

On the direction ofPriyanka, who is also thein-charge of the state,through Facebook live,expressed her anguishover Lallu’s arrest forprotesting the UP gov-

ernment’s rejection ofthe offer of 1,000 busesto ferry the stranded mi-grant workers.

Around 50k Congressworkers went live on theFacebook at noon andraised the plight of themigrant workers andslammed the govern-ment.

May

21

May

20

May

19

13332 14441

5,609 5,765

May

17

May

18

May

15

May

16

May

7

May

8

May

9

May

10

May

11

May

12

May

13

May

14

10003 95 12228 9997 8887 12222 13334 10000 10003 12220 15557 13334 14440

1,273

1,307

1,511

1,559

1,5381,931

1,849 1,685

2,233

3,956

2,7152,350

TRACKING THE VIRUSConfirmed Covid-19 cases in India hit 1,18,088 on Thursday.The death toll now stands at 3,583. Total recovered 48,527.

AS OF 10 PM THURSDAY

SOURCE: DHNS/PTI

3,390

3,320

3,277

4,213

3,604

3,525

3,722 3,967

3,970

4,6975,242

4,970

5,611Positive cases Recovery Deaths

3,124

3,002

3,227

EXCLUSIVE

Samajwadi Partyyyt , BSPand AAAAA P will not jointhe Opposition lead-

ers’ meet on Friday to dis-cuss Narendra Modi gov-ernment’s response to theCovid-19 pandemic as wellas “inadequate” financialpackage and “bulldozing”of states.

Eighteen parties haveconfirmed that they willattend the meeting thatwillbechairedbyCongresspresident Sonia Gandhiand attended by formerprime minister H D DeveGowda,MaharashtraChiefMinister Uddhav Thacker-ay, West Bengal CM Mam-ata Banerjee, DMK chief

MK Stalin and CPM gen-eral secy Sitaram Yechury.

SP, BSP and AAAAA P havechosen to distance them-selves from the meetingas they “do not find politi-cally prudent” to attend ameeting convened by theCongress. However, theNational Conference hasagreed to attend the meet-ing while JD(S) gave itsgreen signal on Thursday.

It was not immediatelyclear whether Farooq Ab-dullah or Omar Abdullahwould be attending thevideo conference. If theychoose to do so, this wouldbe their first high-profilepolitical deliberation sincetheir release from deten-tion. Trinamool Congresschief Mamata would join

the meeting late as shewould be touring the statehit by Cyclone Amphanwhile Prime MinisterNarendra Modi is alsoscheduled to be in Bengalon Friday. Trinamool’sRajya Sabha leader DerekO’Brien will hold fort theparty in the meeting tillMamata joins.

During the meeting, thetop leaders are expectedto discuss the way aheadfor the Opposition in pre-senting a united face whiletaking on the Modi gov-ernment. Those attendingthe meeting include CPIgeneral secretary D Raja,Jharkhand Chief MinisterHemantSoren,RJD leaderTejashwi Yadav, RLD’s AjitSingh among others.

AAP, SP & BSP to skip Oppn meetSHEMIN JOY

NEW DELHI, DHNS

Maha’s Covid-19 count crosses 41k-markMUMBA I, DHNS: The Covid-19cases in Maharashtra crossed the41,000-mark on Thursday.

In Mumbai, the cases continuedto leap and crossed the 25,000-mark. On Thursday, 2,345 caseswere reported from the state, push-ing the total to 41,642.

In Mumbai, the total cases nowstandat25,500.Inthelast24hours,64 deaths were reported of which41 are in Mumbai. Meanwhile,1,408 patients were discharged tak-ing the progressive total to 11,726.

Along with Mumbai, the cases inthe larger Mumbai metropolitanregion is also showing a rise.

Out of 3,19,710 laboratory sam-ples, 2,78,068 were negative and41,642 have been tested positivefor Covid-19 until Thursday.

58 L houses surveyedThe Mumbai civic body has sur-veyed over 58 lakh houses in In-dia’s financial capital - as part of apreventive measure to combat thespread of Covid-19.

WORLD

China dismisses US diplomat’scomments on Sino-India ties►China on Thursdaydismissed as “nonsense”a senior US diplomat’sremarks blaming it forusing constant aggres-sion on the border withIndia to try to changethe status quo and saidconsultations were goingon through diplomaticchannels betwwwt een Beijingand New Delhi, whichhas “nothing to do” withWashington, PTI reportsfrom Beijing.

Responding to aquestion on the flllf are-up of border tensionsbetwwwt een India and China,Alice G Wells, the seniorUS diplomat for Southand Central Asia, on

Wednesday describedBeijing’s aggression as“not always rhetorical”and accused it of continu-ing with its “provocativeand disturbing behav-iour” to try to shift thestatus quo. “There’s amethod here to Chineseoperations, and it is thatconstant aggression, theconstant attempt to shiftthe norms, to shift whatis the status quo. It has tobe resisted,” Wells, theoutgoing Principal Dep-utyyyt Assistant Secretaryof State for South andCentral Asian Affairs,told the Atlantic Councilthink-tank at a virtualevent on Wednesday.

China may limit HK Oppn activity►China’s ceremonial par-liament will consider a billthat could limit oppositionactivityyyt in Hong Kong, aspokesperson said Thurs-day, appearing to confirmspeculation that Chinawill sidestep the territory’sown lawmaking body inenacting legislation tocrack down on activityyytBeijing considers subver-sive, AP/PTI reports fromBeijing.

Zhang Yesui saidthe National People’s

Congress will deliberatea bill on “establishingand improving the legalsystem and enforcementmechanisms for the HongKong Special Administra-tive Region to safeguardnational securityyyt .” Such amove has long been underconsideration but washastened by months ofanti-government protestslast year in the formerBritish colony that washanded over to Chineserule in 1997.

Nasa astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley arriveat the Kennedy Space Centre to prepare for the launchof SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule at Cape Canaveral,

Florida, on Wednesday. REUTERS

Nasa’s 1st home launch in 9 yrs►The twwwt o astronautswho will end a nine-yearlaunch drought for Nasaarrived at the KennedySpace Centre on Wednes-day, exactly one week be-fore their historic SpaceXflllf ight, AP/PTI reportsfrom Cape Canaveral.

It will be the first time aprivate company, ratherthan a national govern-ment, sends astronautsinto orbit. Nasa test pilots

Doug Hurley and BobBehnken flllf ew to Floridafrom their home base inHouston aboard one ofthe space agency’s jets.“It’s an incredible timefor Nasa and the spaceprogram, once againlaunching US crews fromFlorida and hopefully injust a week from aboutright now,” Hurley toldreporters minutes afterarriving.

Amphan batters Bangladesh►Cyclone ‘Amphan’which battered WestBengal has also wreakedhavoc in Bangladesh,killing at least 10 people,devastating coastal villag-es, inundating many areasand damaging scores ofhouses, PTI reports fromDhaka.

Cyclone ‘Amphan’,the strongest to hit theregion in nearly twwwt odecades, made a landfallon Wednesday evening.It was the most powerfulstorm since cyclone ‘Sidr’killed nearly 3,500 peo-ple in 2007. “From ourinitial report we can say10 people were killed in

the cyclone,” said AyeshaAkhtar, spokeswomanof the health ministry’scontrol room.

Akhtar said officials inthe coastlines so far couldconfirm identities of sixof the deceased while aprocess was underwayto assess the medicalrequirements and otherdetails in the affectedarea. Initial reports fromthe coastlines suggestedmost of the deaths werecaused by accidents liketrees falling on peopleand wall collapse. ARed Crescent volunteerdrowned during an evac-uation bid.

A car lies buried as flood waters from heavyrains caused mass damage in Sanford, Michigan,on Thursday. More than 10,000 residents wereevacuating their homes after two dams failed

following heavy rains triggered what offfff icials warnedwill be historic flooding. AFP

WORLD AT A GLANCE

11DECCANNNA HERAAAR LLLA DFridayMay 22, 2020

TOTAL CASES: 50,14,943

*Top 10 countries ranked in terms of infections

Source:JohnsHopkinsasof10pmISTTTS

Active cases: 22,38,163 (50%)

Recovered: 19,09,701 (43%)

Deaths: 3,28,462 (7%)

COVID-19 TrackerCOUNTRIES INFECTED ACTIVE DEATH

United States 15,55,537 11,18,531 93,558Russia 3,17,554 2,20,341 3,099Brazil 2,91,579 1,50,172 18,859United Kingdom 2,52,234 2,12,717 36,124Spain 2,32,555 54,067 27,888Italy 2,27,364 65,129 32,330France 1,81,700 90,224 28,135Germany 1,78,748 13,057 8,195Turkey 1,52,587 34,378 4,222Iran 1,29,341 20,958 7,249

COVID-19 PANDEMIC: Trump’s optimism cut a sharp contrast with the bleak reality

Global infections from thenovelcoronaviruspassedfive million on Thursday

as the pandemic played outunevenly across the planet,with China eager to declarea victory, Europe tentativelyemerging from its shell anddeaths still rising in hotspotsin Latin America.

The grim milestone comesafter known cases of Covid-19doubled in just one month,according to AFP data collect-ed from official sources, withthe death toll now topping3,28,000 worldwide.

While many hard-hit Euro-pean countries have signifi-cantly turned the tide on newinfections and fatalities, LatinAmerica is in the grip of an in-fection surge.

Brazil is leading the pack,logging the third-highest num-ber of cases in the world afterthe US and Russia.

Peru, Mexico and Chile havealso seen steady increases in in-fections, with nurses in Limawarning that the health systemis on the brink of collapse aftercases and deaths tripled overthe past three weeks.

“It’s like a horror film,”Miguel Armas, a nurse at theHipolito Unanuehospitalinthecapital Lima, told AFP.

“Inside it seems like a cem-etery given all the bodies. Pa-tients are dying in their chairs(or) in their wheelchairs.”

In Brazil, far-right PresidentJair Bolsonaro continues toscorn experts’ advice on curb-ing the contagion as he pressesregional governors to end stay-at-home measures.

And like US President Don-ald Trump, he has promotedthe use of anti-malaria drugsagainst the virus despite stud-ies showing they have no ben-efit and could have dangerousside effects.

Trump, for his part, insiststhe US is “Transitioning backto Greatness” as states reopenat different speeds.

His optimism cut a sharpcontrast with the bleak healthsituation in the country, which

leads the world in cases anddeaths.

While daily death tolls are nolonger on a steady incline, thelosses are still punishing withmore than 1,500 additionalfatalities reported in 24 hourson Wednesday, bringing to thetotal number in the US to morethan 93,400.

On the economic front, thelatest figures out of the USshowed the rate of unemploy-ment slowing -- but the totalnumber of jobs lost since mid-Marchstoodataneye-watering38.6 million.

Trump, who is desperateto boost his political fortunesahead of November elections,has also doubled down onhis finger-pointing at China,who he blamed for “this massWorldwide killing”.

Pedestrians walk on the main street of Chinatown after the Thai government relaxed measures to combat the spread of theCovid-19 novel coronavirus, in Bangkok on Thursday. AFP

1,500 more deaths aclear reminder thatit will take time toget back to normal

▼▼▼

Virus infections top 5 million asshutdownnnw eases across the globe

PARIS, AFP

LONDON, PTI: The first Unit-ed Kingdom frontline Na-tional Health Service (NHS)worker will be enrolled as aparticipant into COPCOV,the largest multinational in-terventional clinical studyinto the prevention of Cov-id-19 using the investigation-al medicine hydroxyyyx chloro-quine.

Enrolment begins onThursday at the BrightonandSussexUniversityyyt Hospi-tals and at the John RadcliffeHospital in Oxford.

Under the multinationalplan, chloroquine, hydrox-ychloroquine or a placebowill be given to more than40,000 healthcare workersfrom the UK and Europe,Africa, Asia and SouthAmerica.

It will test whether thedrugs can prevent health-care workers exposed to thevirus from contracting it.

UK starts test onanti-malaria drugtrial as means to

fight Covid-19

NEW DELHI, DHNS: PresidentRam Nath Kovind on Thurs-day accepted the Letters ofCredence from the new en-voys of Australia and six oth-er foreign countries to Indiathrough a video-conference.

This was the first time thepresident accepted Letters ofCredence from newly-appoint-ed foreign envoys throughvideo-conference, as a formalceremony could not be held inview of the Covid-19 pandemicand the curbs enforced to con-tain it.

The envoys, who present-ed the Letters of Credence

through video-conference,included the new High Com-missioner of Australia to India,Barry Robert O’Farrell. “I amimmensely honoured to betaking over as Australia’s newHigh Commissioner to India,”O’Farrell told the president.

Kovind also accepted Let-ter of Credence from ChoeHui Chol, the new ambassa-dor of North Korea to India.Besides, new envoys of Sene-gal, Mauritius, Cote d’Ivoire,Trinidad & Tobago and Rwan-da to India also submitted theLetters of Credence to himthrough video-conference.

The president said that dig-ital technology had enabledthe world to overcome thechallenges posed by Covid-19pandemic and continue rou-tine works in an innovativemanner. He called the digital-ly-enabled credentials ceremo-ny as a special occasion in en-gagement of the Governmentof India with the diplomaticcommunityyyt in New Delhi.

He further noted that Indiaremained committed to har-nessing the limitless possibili-ties of the digital pathway forthe advancement of its peopleand the world at large.

President Koviiiv nd accepts lettttt ersof credence frrrf om envoys viiiv a online

President Donald Trumpannounced on Thursdayhe plans to withdraw the

United States from the OpenSkies Treaty with Russia, thethird arms control pact Trumphas abrogated since coming tooffice.

The US leader said Moscowhad not stuck to its commit-ments under the 18-year-oldpact, which was designed toimprove military transparen-cy and confidence betwwwt een thesuperpowers.

“Russia did not adhere to thetreatyyyt ,”Trump told reporters atthe White House.

“So until they adhere, we willpull out.”

The New York Times report-ed that Trump plans to inform

Moscow of the move on Friday,and that it could be a prelude toWashington also withdrawingfrom the New START Treaty,which limits the number of nu-clear missiles the United Statesand Russia can deploy.

The Open Skies agreementbetween Russia, the UnitedStates and 32 other countries,mostly members of the NATOalliance, permits one country’smilitary to conduct a certainnumber of surveillance flllf ights

over another each year onshort notice.

The aircraft can survey theterritory below, collecting in-formation and pictures of mili-tary installations and activities.

The idea is that the more ri-val militaries know about eachother, the less the chance ofconflllf ict betwwwt een them.

But the sides also use theflllf ights to examine vuuuv lnerabil-ities of their opponent.

The United States has beenfrustrated that Russia will notpermit US flllf ights over areaswhere Washington believesMoscow is deploying medi-um-range nuclear weaponsthat threaten Europe.

Pentagon spokesman Jona-than Hoffman said Russia “flllf a-grantly, continuously violatesits obligations”under the pact.

Trump to withdraw US from‘Open Skies’ treaty with Russia

WASHINGTON, AFP The Philippines has emerged as aglobal hot spot for online child sexualexploitation, and coronavirus lock-

downs that restrict millions to their homesmay be worsening the abuses, a US officialsaid on Thursday.

A new study released by the Washing-ton-based International Justice Missionon Thursday said Philippine cases ofonline child sexual exploitation haveincreased sharply in recent years with par-ents conniving to have their own childrenvictimized for the money. The nongovern-mental group has helped track down andprosecute offenders in the Philippines.

“The global shutdown with the Covid-19pandemic seems to only be increasingthese phenomena,” US State Departmentofficial John Richmond, who oversees USefforts to combat human trafficking, saidin an online launch of the study.

In most cases “the traffickers are actuallyparents or close family members of the kids

they are exploiting,” Richmond said. “Andso lockdown orders mean that childrenare being locked down with their traffick-ers.” The webcam scheme has involvedpaedophiles in the US, Canada, Europe andAustralia who pay facilitators to sexuallyabuse children, even babies, in the privacyof Philippine homes. They watch and helpdirect the abuses through online.

The wide use of English, availabilityytof internet connections and widespreadinternational cash transfer systems haveallowed many abuses.

Citing online tips on abuses, the studysaid the estimated number of InternetProtocol addresses used for online childsexual exploitation rose sharply fromabout 23,333 in 2014 to 81,723 in 2017 — a250% increase. The study showed 64% ofonline sexual child abuse cases in the Phil-ippines were initiated by foreign authori-ties largely because of a lack of capabilityytto detect the livestreamed abuse, whichis often uncovered only when foreign lawenforcers accost an offender abroad.

Philippinesaglobalhotspotforonlinechildabuse:Study

EXPLOITATION

MANILA, AP/PTI

A man with a child rides a motorbike in the streetblocked by trees that were uprooted by Amphan in

Satkhira, Bangladesh, on Thursday. REUTERS

TACKLING VIRUS� The number of Ameri-cans thrown out of worksince the coronaviruscrisis struck two monthsago has climbed to nearly39 million

� A U nited States militaryplane carrying dozens ofdonated American ven-tilators touched down inMoscow� Countries around theworld have reportedsteep falls in fuel demandas lockdowns to containthe spread of the novelcoronavirus limit themovement of more than4 billion people

The United States hasnudged India to low-er tariffs and adopt

a more open policy to lurebusinesses and take advan-tage of the moves to lessenthe dependence of the globalsupply chains on China in thepost-Covid-19 world.

EvenasNewDelhihasbeentryingtodispeltheperceptionthat Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi’s push for “Atman-irbhar Bharat” (Self-reliantIndia) might lead to protec-tionism, a senior US diplomatsaid that the post-Covid-19 en-vironment would offer India“a real moment of opportu-nityyyt ”, but Modi’s governmentshould lower tariffs and adopt“more open and welcoming”policies.

“I think what we should fo-cus on, again, in this post-pan-demic environment, whencountries are looking at a littlebit of de-globalisation and ofonshoring of more of the crit-ical production, at the sametime…I think there’s a veryvigorous effort to diversifysupply chains,” said Alice GWells, Principal Deputyyyt Assis-tantSecretaryyyr attheBureauof

South and Central Asia at theUS State Departttr ment.

“AnnnA d, this is a real momentof opportunity for India byadopting more open and wel-coming policies, by reducingtariffs that allow manufactur-ing companies inside of Indiato be part of a global supplychain,”she added.

The lockdowns enforcedby nations to contain thepandemic had a devastatingimpact on the global econo-my and fuelled speculationthat many companies mightseek to diversifyyyf global supplychains to lessen reliance onChina.

Wells also hinted during anonline interaction with jour-naliststhatPresidentTrump’sadministration would like tosee US companies prefer In-diawhilemovingoutofChina,but India should ensure a lev-el-playing field for them.

“It’s a real moment of op-portunityyyt for us (India and theUS) to create trusted supplychain relationships with oneanother,” added the US dip-lomat, who is set to retire bythe end of this month afteroverseeing America’s rela-tions with South Asian andCentral Asian nations for thepast three years.

India must lower tariffs tolure firms leaving Chinapost-Covid-19, says US

ANIRBAN BHAUMIKNEW DELHI, DHNS

President Ram Nath Kovind accepts credentials from Ambassadors and High Commissionersof Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Senegal, Trinidad & Tobago, Mauritius, Australia,

Cote d’Ivoire and Rwanda through a video conference, in New Delhi on Thursday. PTI

LONDON, PTI: British PrimeMinister Boris Johnsonon Thursday did a U-turnas he ordered his Cabinetministers to work out anexemption of a surchargeon foreign medics, includ-ing Indians, working in theUK’s state-funded NationalHealth Service (NHS).

The move comes just a dayafter he had dismissed thepossibility of a review intowhat has been repeatedlybranded as an “unfair” bur-den on professionals alreadycontributing directly to thehealth service in Parliament.

“The Prime Minister hasasked me and the HomeSecretary (Priti Patel) tolook at how NHS and careworkers can be removedfrom this as soon as possi-ble,” said UK Health Secre-tary Matt Hancock, whenasked about the annualImmigration Health Sur-charge (IHS) imposed alongwith a visa to raise addition-al funds for the state-fundedhealth service.

The Opposition LabourPartyyyt , which had thrown itsweight behind the doctors’organisations campaigningagainst the surcharge, wel-comed the “U-turn”.

Boris doesU-turn on ‘unfair’

surcharge onforeign doctors

DONALD TRUMPUS President

“Russiadid not

adhere to thetreaty...Sountil they ad-

here, we will pull out.

BUSINESS12 DECCANNNA HERAAAR LLLA DFriday

May 22, 2020

Rupee gains19 paise, sensexup 114 pointsMUMBAI, PTI: The rupeerose by 19 paise to closeat 75.61 against the UScurrency on Thursdayon dollar selling by banksfollowing gains in equitiesand weakness in thegreenback.

Gradual reopening ofthe economic activitiesincluding air and railtravel bolstered the rupeesentiment, forex dealerssaid.

The rupee, however,witnessed high volatilityyytduring the trading sessionas positive domestic eq-uities supported the localunit, while foreign fundoutflllf ows and concernsover coronavirus outbreakweighed on the greenback,they added.

At the interbank foreignexchange, the rupeeopened strong at 75.70gained further to finallysettled at 75.61, register-ing a rise of 19 paise overits previous close.

Sensex rises 114 pointsThe 30-share BSE Sensexrose for the third day in arow to settled 114.29 pointsor 0.37% up at 30,932.90.The broader NSE Niftyadvanced 39.70 points, or0.44%, to 9,106.25 as in-vestors took heart from thegradual resumption of eco-nomic activities.

ITC was the top gainerin the Sensex pack, rallyingover 7%, followed by AsianPaints, Hero MotoCorp.

Businesses seeking for law tweakto retain MSME space

WiiiW th MSMEs being oneof the few beneficiar-ies to get substantive

Covid-19 relief by the govern-ment and Reserve Bank ofIndia, many small businesses,which no longer qualify forMSME status, have been re-questing the government totweak rules to include theminto the small and medium in-dustry space.

While India’s seven crorestrong traders, includingwholesale, retail and others,have written to Prime MinisterNarendra Modi for their inclu-sion in MSME sector, the ap-parel export council has urgedto twwwt eak some of the criteria sothat they are not excluded.

“Apparel sector employsclose to 13 million workers ofwhich 70% are women. Thegarment industry is spreadacross the country. TamilNadu, Karnataka, Delhi, Har-yana, Maharashtra, Punjab,Uttar Pradesh and Gujaratare mainly the hubs. Exportsindustry turnover depends onforeign exchange rates hencewe would like the criteria ofturnover to be removed forthe apparel sector and onlyinvestment criteria of Rs 50crore should be applied forthem for inclusion in MSME,”the Apparel Export PromotionCouncil wrote to MMSMEMinister Nitin Gadkari.

In a letter to Prime MinisterNarendra Modi, the Confeder-ation of All India Traders said

traders have been excludedfrom the MSME definition.

“The inclusion of servicesector by the Finance Minis-ter under definition of MSMEclearly reflllf ects the intention ofthe Government for awardingsuch package to traders toosince traders are regarded aspart of service sector but inabsence of any crystal clearclarification, it leaves the scopeof ambiguityyyt and discretionaryat the hands of the officials,”CAIT said in the letter.

It said about 45% traders ofthe country are operating theirbusiness activities in rural andsemi-rural areas and can bebetter termed as ‘marginaltraders’ while 55% of othertraders are conducting theirbusiness operations in urbanareas and are having a greatbunch of financial load to bemeted out on lifting of lock-down in the country.

The government has an-nounced Rs 3 lakh crore emer-gency working capital facili-ties for businesses, includingMSMEs.

This is a direct aid for el-igible MSMEs (i.e., havingturnover up to Rs 100 croreand outstanding debt up toRs 25 crore) in form of col-lateral-free, interest-capped,fixxxi ed-tenured with fixxxi ed-mora-torium and government-guar-anteed automatic loans.

It has also announced Rs50,000 crore equity infusionthrough MSME fund funds de-signed to encourage potentialMSMEs to expand their sizeand capacityyyt .

The states that are heavilydependent on the localworkforce, have seen a

steep jump in unemploymentduring the lockdown period.

Tamil Nadu, a state thatis highly dependent on localworkers and is the second big-gest contributing state to theIndian economy, is currentlyreeling under the highest un-employment rate in the coun-try -- 49.8% in April.

Similarly, states like Bihar(46.6%), Haryana (43.2%) andJharkhand (47.1%) have hitway harder than the nationalunemployment rate of 23.5%.

On the contrary, Maha-rashtra, which contributes16% to India’s GDP is worsthit because of the coronavi-

rus pandemic. The state wit-nessed the unemploymentrate stand below the nationalrate -- at 20.9%.

The migrant workforce,who have been primarily fo-cusing on returning to theirhome states, are not consid-ered as part of the unemployedpopulation. On the otherhand, the local workforce,which is staying put, is active-ly searching for jobs, henceadding up to the employmentrate. This is why you see wayhigher unemployment rate inTamil Nadu than in Maharash-tra, according to labor marketanalysts.

Experts and entrepreneursattribute the massive increasein unemployment in the stateto shut down of industriesdue to Covid-19 lockdown. Al-ready, the slowdown had hitthe MSMEs and automobile

sector so badly that some unitshave shut or companies are re-sorting to lay-offs, resulting inunemployment.

Prof. M Vijayabaskar of Ma-dras Institute of DevelopmentStudies told DH that TamilNadu is one state along withKerala which does not dependon agriculture for job genera-tion and this could be the rea-son for the sharp increase inthe unemployment rate.

“Tamil Nadu’s dependenceon agriculture for job gener-ation is one of the lowest andthe state has been successfulin transforming itself into anindustrial hub. The industri-alized state could not handlea shock like a complete lock-down and that could be thereason for such a massiveincrease in the percentage,”Vijayabaskar said.

From textiles to automo-

biles to knitwwwt ear to fireworksto engineering industries – theengines that fuel Tamil Nadu’svibrant economy is in crisisand are slowly limping backto normalcy. Vijayabaskaradded that most industriesthat provide employment op-portunities to people like theautomobile, medical tourism,tourism, and construction sec-tors have been badly hit due toCovid-19.

“All the problem is not due

to Covid-19 alone, there wereproblems in sectors like theautomobile for the past fewmonths due to slowdown.Even MSMEs were badly hitdue to the slowdown and thatis also a reason for unemploy-ment,” he added.

K E Raghunathan, formerpresident of All India Man-ufacturers’ Organisation(AIMO), told DH that it wouldtake at least a month to knowwhether this phenomenon istemporary or permanent. Healso said about 30% to 40% ofMSMEsareexpectedtoshrinktheir employment opportuni-ties by 40% in the second quar-ter of this year.

“We need to know whetherthis is permanent unemploy-ment or just a temporary orshort-term layoff. That can beascertained only when facto-ries open up,” he added.

Dependence on local labourspiking unemployment

Homebuyers across thecountry have demand-ed the waiver of inter-

est on their housing loans tillthe completion of housingprojects for which the govern-ment has given extension un-der the force majeure clause.

Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman, last week, an-nouncedsixxxi monthsextttx ensionto all the RERAAAR registered res-idential projects that are duefor completion. Many hous-ing projects are delayed dueto lockdown for the last twomonths.

“The interest part on theprincipal amount of the loanduring this Covid-19 force ma-jeure period should be waived.The homebuyers are now fac-ing pay cuts, unsecured jobsand over and above the rent,”Srinivasan Shankar, NationalSecretary, Forum for People’s

Collective Efforts (FPCE), apan-India homebuyers forumsaid.

FPCE, in a dissent notesent to Hardeep Singh Puri,minister of state for housing,appealed that the governmentshould acknowledge Covid-19as a natural calamity underForce Majeure and extensionof RERAAAR registered projects,as per section 6 of the RERAAct applicable only for actu-al lockdown period, withoutleaving it to the adjudicationor to the discretionary powerof the authorityyyt as per Provisoof Section 6.

Force majeure benefitshould be extended to home-buyers also, he said.

Earlier this week, the Kar-nataka RERA authority in-voked ‘Force Majeure’ clauseand extended by six monthsthe period of validity of reg-istration of projects whichwere due for expiry on orafter March 15. KRERA will

be issuing project registra-tion certificates, with revisedtimelines for such projects,it said in its order dated May19, 2020. With this, about 75projects comprising around2,000 residential units willget an extension in Bengalu-ru.

The FPCE has also de-manded that the buildersshould bear the interest parttill homebuyers get posses-sion of flllf at, as it is not theirfault. They are forced to payboth rent and EMI.

“As otherwise, if the pro-ject gets completed as per theRERA completion date, thefinancial impact on the home-buyer will be only EMI andnot rent. Hence, the RERAauthorities, while utilisingtheir discretion to extendthe project, they should di-rect the builders suo-motu tocompensate the interest partof the EMI till possession ofthe flllf at,” Shankar said.

MAHESH KULKARNIBENGALURU, DHNS

Homebuyers seek home loaninterest waiver

Amazon India on Thurs-day said it is launchingiiiA ts food delivery oper-

ations in select parts of Ben-galuru, a move that will seethe e-commerce giant com-pete against major playerslike Zomato and Swiggy.

The announcement byAmazon India - which hasbeen testing the service for afew months - comes at a timewhen Zomato and Swiggyhave announced laying offmore than 1000 employeesamid the COVID-19 pandem-ic.

“Customers have been tell-ing us for some time that theywould like to order preparedmeals on Amazon in additionto shopping for all other es-sentials. This is particularlyrelevant in present times asthey stay home safe. We alsorecognise that local business-es need all the help they can

get,”an AmmmA azon India spokes-person said.

The company did not elab-orate further on its expansionplans in the Indian market.

The spokesperson addedthat Amazon Food will belaunched in select Bengalurupin codes. “...allowing cus-tomers to order from hand-picked local restaurants andcloud kitchens that pass ourhigh hygiene certificationbar. We are adhering to thehighest standards of safetyyyt toensure our customers remainsafe while having a delightfulexperience,” the spokesper-son said.

The service will initially beavailable in four-pin codes inBengaluru - Mahadevapura,Marathalli, Whitefield andBellandur covering over 100restaurants. The orders canbe placed through Amazonapp but the option will cur-rently be visible to customersin the live pin codes.

AmmmA azon enters fooddelivery biz in India

NEW DELHI, PTI

Hyundai launches new Verna

Hyuuuy ndaiMotor India onWednesday, launchedthe new Verna sedan.

It has been launched at anintroductory price of Rs 9.3lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).

SS Kim, MD & CEO,Hyundai Motor India said,“The new Verna isan all-rounder sedanwith human technol-ogy connect compris-ing futuristic design,smartconnect,ingen-ious detailing and su-perior dynamics fornew age aspirationalcustomers.”

The new Verna will beoffered in BS-VI diesel andpetrol engines with a 1.0 li-tre turbo GDI engine with a7-speed dual-clutch trans-mission, a 1.5-litre BS-VI pet-rol with a 6-speed manual

transmission and a variabletransmission and a 1.5-litreBS-VI diesel with a 6-speedmanual transmission anda 6-speed automatic trans-mission.

The new car sports LEDheadlamps and a darkchrome radiator grille.

The turbo trim offers twintip muffler,glossy blackgrille and all-black interi-ors. The newVerna alsosports R16d u a l - t o n estyled steel

wheel and new diamond cutalloys.

Other features of the newVerna include a digital clus-ter, front ventilated seats,tyre pressure monitoringsystem, 20.32 cm touch-screen infotainment display.

Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman will hold a re-view meeting with CEOs

of public sector banks (PSBs)on Friday to discuss various is-sues, including loan disburse-ment, as part of efforts to revivethe economy reeling under theCovid-19 impact, sources said.

The meeting, which wasearlier scheduled for May 11,got deferred due to the stimu-lus package announcements,they added.

The meeting assumes sig-nificance as the banking sec-tor has to implement manyschemes under the Rs 21 lakhcrore economic package an-nounced by the finance minis-ter in five tranches last week.

The Union Cabinet headedby Prime Minister NarendraModi on Wednesday gave itsnod for many of the schemesannounced as part of ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’package to prop up the econo-

my reeling under the Covid-19crisis.

The meeting, to be held viavideo-conferencing, will alsotake stock of interest rate trans-mission to borrowers by banksand progress on moratoriumon loan repayments, the sourc-es said.

The RBI had on March 27slashed the benchmark inter-est rate by a massive 75 basispoints and also announced athree-month moratorium tobe given by banks to providerelief to borrowers whose in-come has been hit due to thelockdown.

At the Friday meeting, chiefexecutives of public sector fi-nancial institutions will also bepresent as some of the schemeshave to be implemented bythem.

The Union Cabinet headedby Prime Minister NarendraModi on Wednesday approved

additional funding of up to Rs3 lakh crore at a concession-al rate of 9.25% through theEmergency Credit Line Guar-antee Scheme (ECLGS) for theMSME sector hit hard by thecoronavirus crisis.

Earlier this month, RBI Gov-ernor Shaktikanta Das held ameeting with heads of bothpublic and private sector banksto take stock of the economicsituation and review imple-mentation of various measuresannouncedbythecentralbank.

The deployment of exces-sive funds by banks under thereverse repo route may alsocome up for discussion on Fri-day, sources said.

Besides, progress under thetargeted long-term repo oper-ations (TLTRO) for the NBFCsector and micro-finance insti-tutions (MFIs), and sanctionsunder the Covid-19 emergencycreditlinewillalsobereviewed.

FM to reviiiv ewprogrrrg ess on

loan diiid spersalIn a meeting withPSB chiefs today

▼▼▼

FURQUAN MOHARKAN &E.T.B SIVAPRIYAN

BENGALURU/CHENNAI, DHNS

BENGALURU, DHNS

ANNAPURNA SINGHNEW DELHI, DHNS

Indiabulls Group asks nearly2,000 employees to resign

MUMBAI, PTI: Diversified fi-nancial services group India-bulls Group has asked nearly2,000 employees to resignfrom the company.

The Group, however, saidthis was part of the annualattrition cycle and claimedthese were not lay-offs.

“The company typicallysees attrition of 10-15% of itsworkforce every year dur-ing April-May in the normalcourse of business. There areno layoffs other than in thenormal course of businessdue to attrition and as per theperformance trend of the en-tire year and not just a coupleof months,”Indiabulls Groupsaid in a statement.

The group did not discloseany specific numbers.

The group employs morethan 26,000 people and in

FY2019-20 itself, it addedmore than 7,000 new mem-bers, the statement said.

Recently, employees of thegroup’s housing finance armIndiabulls Housing Financeclaimed that they were askedto resign from the companyby their reporting manageron May 15, 2020, with theirlast working day as May 31,2020.

A few employees of themortgage lender said thatthey were not being allowedto serve the three-month no-tice period. The company’sspokesperson, however, saidthe notice period will vary asperthecontractofemployees.

Some employees of thecompany have claimed thatthey received a transfer orderas they have not submittedtheir resignation.

WhhW en Prime MinisterNarendra Modirecently announced

a stimulus package forIndia, he said it was worthRs 20 lakh crore — $265billion, equivalent to about10% of the country’s GDP.This seemed to fit in withthe amounts being spent bysome rich OECD economiesto deal with the fallout fromthe Covid-19 pandemic.Equityyt markets exulted.

In Modi’s India, though,it’s usually wise to wait forthe details. Now that they’reout, the markets — and manyeconomists — are disap-pointed. Actual spending is afraction of what Modi prom-ised, they argue — perhapsas little as 1% of GDP. Onceequityyt traders added up thepackage’s components, themarkets duly sank back intothe gloom.

In fact, Modi and his

advisers have gotten it right,and governments aroundthe world could learn fromtheir caution. While India’sfast-growing economy facesan unprecedented slowdownthanks to the pandemicspending on everytty hing insight isn’t the best solution.

India’s policymakersfound the correct prescrip-tion because they beganwith the proper diagnosis.A bigger stimulus wouldhave been the right way toaddress a crisis in aggregatedemand. But that’s notIndia’s problem: Until wefigure out the best way toreopen, the country needsless economic activityyt , notmore. The real issue isthe lockdown imposed toslow the spread of the newcoronavirus.

Instead of wasting moneyit doesn’t have, the govern-ment has tried to addressthe problem we do have.Government spendingworks if no other event,

policy or signal can addressthe coordination problemsthat underlie a collapse inaggregate demand. In thiscase, we know there is such asignal: an end to the currentemergency. In the interim,what the government needsto do is figure out how topreserve those things thatwould allow the economyto respond to that signal.Yes, that can cost moneyand governments are thespenders of last resort. Buteven more important thanthe government’s abilityyt topay is its abilityyt to absorbrisk and provide liquidityyt .India’s rescue package is

structured around preciselythese strengths. It includesthe promise, for example,of roughly $40 billion incollateral-free loans to smallbusinesses that would becompletely guaranteed bythe government.

People who believe theirbusiness will recover cantake on a loan for paymentsthat they have to make;banks will be happy to coverthem

Instead of the governmentfiguring out who to pay toreopen the economy, banksand businesses will make thedecision. Thanks to this fo-cus on liquidityyt support andrisk underwriting instead ofacross-the-board spending,India’s debt might remainunder control instead ofexploding. Most important-ly, Modi’s government hasnot been foolish enough toreverse decades of painfulinstitutional reform anddemand the central bankstart monetizing its debt.

That would have spelt thedeath knell for India as amature economy —If someeconomists are furious,that’s because economists,like generals, are alwaysbattling the last crisis.ICaution is wise. Unlikemany of their global peers,India’s policymakers seem torecognize that, faced with anunprecedented emergency,their primary responsibil-ityyt is to keep things stableuntil it is clear how best tointervene. It’s not to dissolveone institutional constraintafter another on the pretextof fighting this.

And, yes, more spendingwill probably be required.If this emergency lastslong enough, India’s poorwill need direct cashtransfers, for example.Let’s hope that incomesupport when it comes, isas cautiously designed. Fornow, look to Modi’s Indiaas a global example, not adisappointment.

No, India doesn’t need a bigger stimulusCOVID-19 RELIEF

MIHIR SHARMABLOOMBERG OPINION

Swiggy beginshome deliveryof alcoholBENGALURU, DHNS: Foodordering and delivery plat-form Swiggy on Thursdaysaid it has started homedelivery of alcohol inJharkhand. It also addedthat it was in talks withvarious state governmentsto provide support withonline processing andhome delivery of alcohol intheir states.

The service has gonelive in Ranchi and will belaunched in other majorcities in Jharkhand withina week, Swiggy said in astatement.

“By enabling homedelivery of alcohol in a safeand responsible manner,we can generate additionalbusiness for retail outletswhile solving the problemof overcrowding, therebypromoting social distanc-ing,” Swiggy Vice-Pres-ident (Products) AnujRathi said in a statement.The online processing andhome delivery is throughthe ‘Wine Shops’.

Honda Motorcycle to restartKarnataka plant from May 25

B E N G A L U R U , D H N S :Two-wheeler major HondaMotorcycle & Scooter IndiaPvt Ltd on Thursday said itwill restart production op-eration at its manufacturingplant in Narasapur near Ben-galuru from May 25.

It will also re-sume productionat three of its otherplants in the firstweek of June.

“To keep thebusiness continuityyytin accordance withthe guidelines is-sued by the govern-ment, nearly 99%of Honda’s 300+supplier plantshave received the necessaryapprovals to resume theiroperations. Honda suppliersare now in advanced stagesof resuming production,” thecompany said in a statement.

With a 360-degree outlookof balancing the forward andbackend linkages across itsecosystem and the evolvingmarket demand, Honda has

aligned its production plans,it said.

Over 60% of Honda dealershave already resumed theirsales & service operations.Initial enquiries, though stillsubdued compared to thepre-lockdown period, are

picking up mo-mentum everyday.

Hence, strate-gically aligningsupply chainwith market de-mand and avail-able BS-6 inven-tory across itsnetwwwt ork, Hondais set to resumeproduction from

its 4 factories in a staggeredmanner from May 25, thecompany said.

Honda has issued compre-hensive operations resump-tion manual in addition tothe applicable central andstate government guidelinesfor its plants, suppliers, logis-tic partners and dealershipsacross the country.

Sebi revisespost-defaultcuring periodNEW DELHI, PTI: Marketsregulator Sebi on Thurs-day said that credit ratingagencies can deviatefrom the 90-day periodrequirement to upgradethe rating of an entityyyt fromdefault to non-investmentgrade on a case-to-casebasis. There is a post-de-fault curing period of 90days for the rating to movefrom default to speculativegrade and generally 365days for default to move toinvestment grade.In a fewrecent cases of defaultsthat even though the ratedentityyyt was able to correctthe default within a rela-tively shorter span of time,the rating could not beupgraded and continuedto be under sub-invest-ment grade

NEW DELHI, PTI

Letmebeginbywishingmyfriend a happy 80th birth-day! That’s as good as any

achievement of his with ballin his hand. The whole world,especially those who playedagainst him, knows what kindof a bowler Pras was. I don’tthink there is any batsman whowill claim that he played Praswith confidence. No one. Hewas an absolute magician. Hewas a thinking bowler and it’smy good fortune that I playeda lot of cricket with him andChandra (B S Chandrasekhar).They really gave confidence tothe batsmen in their team. Ofcourse, we played for the coun-try a lot together, but the bestpart about playing for the sameState was that we learnt a lotfromPrasandChandra,andwealsolearnthow to playtop-classspin bowling.

After playing these twogreats, we faced other spin-ners with a lot of confidence.I, therefore, credit our prac-tice sessions, where we had achance to face these two, forthe batsmen we became – play-ers like myself, Brijesh (Patel),(B) Vijaya (Krishna) or Sudha

(R Sudhakar Rao)… Practicestints were serious business,we treated them like match-es. We didn’t have open netsessions but Praswould set imag-inary fields inthe ‘nets’ andbowlaccording-ly to prepare us.

Pras was not anevery-ball-wicket-tak-er. He would set batsmenup before delivering thekiller blow. He would ploteach of his dismissals andhe could do so becausehe had the requisitevariety. I am notsaying every ballused to be differ-ent but the flllf ightwould differ forthe same tyyyt pe ofdelivery.

T o d a y ,bo w l er s u s etechnology toimprove theirperformance, butthe science behindbowlers of that gener-ation was different. Acanny bowler, Pras hadgreat faith in his skills.I have seen him bowland immediately startmoving towards mid-on in anticipation ofa catch. It’s not likehe would scamperand dive, he would just jogand comfortably completethat catch.

It was almost like expectinga catch during catching prac-

tice. He knew what he wasbowling and he knew exactlywhere the batsman was goingto hit that ball.

I remember one ballhe bowled that even Sunil(Gavaskar) will never forget.It was the Ranji Trophy semifi-nal in 1973-74 at the Chinnas-wamy Stadium. People these

days talk about the doos-ra and the teesra, I

don’t want to talkabout that… Butthis ball to Sunilwas somethingelse. It was on the

off-stump line,drifted in andturned away

to brush thewoodwork. It

was delivered withthe same off-break

action and I had thebest view of his bowling

because I was at slip. Icouldn’t believe the way

the ball drifted in and thenbroke away on pitching be-cause from first sight, it wasa totally regulation off-spin-ner. In the end, it didn’t turnaway much, just enough tobeat the bat and hit the off-stump.

As I said, his strength wasvariety. One of Pras’ varia-

tions was to deliver the balloff his palm. Holding the ball

in your palm and releasing itwith the same control was justunbelievable. It was the sameas his off-break, but travelleda triflllf e slow.

The batsman is already com-mitted to play in a particularway but the ball isn’t there yet.These are just a few examples Ihave cited to explain his genius.He is easily the best off-spinnerI have ever come across. AndI say that with great responsi-bilityyyt .

Happy birthday once again,brother; being a batsman, Iwish you get to your 100!

(As told to Madhu Jawali)

SPORT 13DECCANNNA HERAAAR LLLA DFridayMay 22, 2020

SL abandonsstadium project►Sri Lankan governmenthas decided to stop itsproposed project to buildwhat was to be the island’sbiggest internationalcricket stadium followinga meeting chaired byPrime Minister MahindaRajapaksa, reports PTIfrom Colombo. “It has beendecided to suspend theproposed new internation-al cricket stadium project inHomagama,” Prime Minis-ter’s office said in a releaseafter the meeting attendedby former cricketers.

It said Rajapaksa hadalso instructed to directfunds to develop schoolcricket and local stadiums.Rajapaksa met formersenior cricketers followinga public outcry against theconstruction. There was noimmediate reaction fromthe governing body, SriLanka Cricket (SLC) to thePrime Minister’s decision.

Short courseworlds pushed►This year’s short courseworld swimming cham-pionships in Abu Dhabihave been rescheduledto December 2021 due toconcerns over the corona-virus pandemic, the sport’sgoverning body (FINA)said Thursday, reports AFPfrom Paris.

“Given the uncertaintyyytrelated with the evolutionof the COVID-19 pandemicworldwide, the safeguardof the athletes’ health andsafetyyyt , and in accordancewith the request of theUAE authorities, FINA hasdecided to re-schedule theupcoming edition of theWorld Swimming Cham-pionships (25m),” it saidin a statement.”The newdates of this competitionare December 13-18, 2021,”it added. The event wasoriginally due to take placethis December.

Spurs checkingon Aurier►Tottenham Hotspurare investigating SergeAurier for a breach of socialdistancing rules after thedefender posted a pictureof himself with his barberon social media, the BBCreported on Wednesday,reports Reuters fromLondon.

Ivory Coast internationalAurier, 27, put a photo ofhis hairdo on Instagram.“We are investigating thecircumstances and willdeal with the incidentappropriately,” the BBCreported Spurs as saying ina statement.

LPGA cancelsQ-schools►The LPGA has decidedto cancel Tour qualifyyyf ing“Q-schools” this yearbecause of the coronaviruspandemic with most play-ers retaining their statusfor the 2021 season, theelite women’s golf circuitsaid on Wednesday, reportsReuters from New York.

The tour also cancelledanother tournamentbecause of the health crisiswhen it scrubbed the Mei-jer LPGA Classic in Michi-gan from the schedule.

The tour, which wassuspended in late Februaryafter the Australian Open,plans to return on July 23with the opening round ofthe Marathon Classic inSylvania, Ohio.

8 footballerstest positive►Eight footballers fromtop-flllf ight Mexican teamSantos Laguna have testedpositive for the corona-virus, the club said onWednesday, jeopardisingattempts to restart the na-tional league, reports AFPfrom Mexico Cityyyt .

A decision on thepossible resumption of theMexican league, the LigaMX, had been expected bythe end of the week, andthe tests were carried outwith a view to resumingtraining.

“This particular situa-tion makes resuming theleague more complicated,”Santos Laguna’s owner,Alejandro Irarragorri, toldTV sports channel TUDN.

IN BRIEF BIRTHDAY SPECIAL

‘The best offfff -spinnnnn er I have seen’

Legendary EAS Prasanna during the launch of his EASP Spin Camp at the Cathedral School inBengaluru in 2009. DH FILE PHOTO/ SRIKANTA SHARMA R

BY GR VISWANATH

Batting greatViswanath pens a

tribute to Prasanna,who turns 80 today

▼▼▼

Prasanna’s recordTESTS

MAT WKTS BBI BBM AVG ECON SR 5W 10W

49 189 8/76 11/140 30.38 2.40 75.9 10 2

FIRST-CLAAL SSMAT WKTS BBI BBM AVG ECON SR 5W 10W

235 957 8/50 — 23.45 2.45 57.2 56 9

A master of impeccable lengths

It was the summer of 2009,and the Cathedral High SchoolgroundinupmarketBengaluruwas buzzing with young crick-eters in sparkling whites. Theoccasion was the launch ofEAS Prasanna’s spin acade-my, which was inaugurated byhis friend and team-mate B SChandrasekhar.

A fewminutesbeforethefor-malities of the launch were tobegin, Prasanna was interact-ing with curious parents andtheir eager children. The usualPrasanna humour had some inthrall while a few others werenervous wrecks, unable tograsp his jokes delivered incharacteristic deadpan fash-ion. Suddenly,Prasannapickeda boy and took him to the ‘nets’.He directed the boy to mark aspot just outside the off-stump,

asked him to stand on the otherside of the net and watch theball closely. With hardly anyrun-up, Prasanna bowled sixdeliveries and then asked theboy, “Where did they land?”The mesmerised kid said, “Sir,all inside the circle.”

Prasanna, 69 then, hadjust given a glimpse of whyhe is held in such admirationand awe by his mates and ri-vals alike. Those impeccablelengths that he maintainedmade him the bowler he was.That’s why you could see him,at that age, land ball after ballon the same spot with the pre-cision of the engineer that hestudied to become.

Like a tyyyt pical middle-classSouth Indian parent, Prasan-na’s father wanted his son to putstuuut dies ahead of cricket. He ap-parentlydidn’tbudgeevenwhenPrasanna was selected for the1962tourofWestIndies.Onlyat

the intervvvr ention (at the behestof doyen of Karnataka cricket,M Chinnaswamy) of a personof the statuuut re of the Maharaja ofMysore, Jaya ChamarajendraWodeyar Bahadur, did he agreeto allow his son to travel. But itwassubjecttotheconditionthatPrasssa annawouldcompletehisen-gineering course.

Prasanna did so at the NIE,Mysore, to fulfill the wish of hisfather who had passed away bythen, but lost out five preciousyears in the process. By thetime Prasanna returned to theIndian side against West Indiesin 1967, the other three mem-bers of the famous spin quartet-- Bishan Bedi, Chandrasekharand S Venkataraghavan -- hadall made their India debuts. Infact, Prasanna had the compa-ny of Bedi and Chandrasekharin his return Test. And whattrail-blazers the quartet turnedout to be!

MADHU JAWALIBENGALURU, DHNS

Aday after all non-contactsports were permitteduuuA nder the coronavi-

rus-forced Lockdown 4.0 inKarnataka, table tennis founditself in a predicament.

Some of the top table tennisacademies in Bengaluru arelocated inside school premises.Sinceschoolandcollegesarenotallowed to function under thegovernment’s lockdown guide-lines, they are hesitant to allowthe resumption of these acade-mies inside their campuses.

Anshuman Roy, who headsthe Skies International TableTennis Academy, is unable tostart training sessions becauseof the issue. The former inter-national said the governmentguidelines lack clarityyyt .

“Parents of my trainees arewilling to give an undertakingthat they take responsibility

in sending their children tothe academy,” he told DH onThursday. “But the school isdemanding a letter from the lo-cal police station or the BruhatBengaluru Mahanagara Palike(BBMP).Iapproachedthembutthe authorities said they aren’tin a position to give such a let-ter. These are unprecedentedtimes and it’s understandablethat the school is hesitant togive the nod. I am looking at thegovernment for help,”he said.

Anshuman, who trains Ya-shaswini Ghorpade -- a top-ranked Indian in the girls’U-15

section – along with other toppaddlers like State championsKaustubh Kulkarni and AkashKJ at East West School, saidpaying for his coaches has be-come a big challenge. “I havethree coaches who are fromKolkata. Their flllf at rents andsalaries are my responsibilityyyt .All of us were rightly sitting athome from last two months.But now, there is an option ofresume activities with properprecautions,” he said.

Anirban Roy Choudhury,who runs the Pong Smash-ers Table Tennis Academy at

the Sri Krishna InternationalEducational Society (SKIES),was also denied permission tobegin training with his wards.

“Definitely schools don’twant to be questioned by any-one in this time of crisis. WhenI approached them with therequest of allowing me to openmy academy, the managementasked me to wait for a coupleof days. They don’t have aclear picture and I can’t blamethem,” said the seasoned cam-paigner who has 40 playersunder him. Both the coachesmaintained that their firststep would be to just focus ontop-ranked players as socialdistancing is vital.

Another senior coach Krun-al Telang has begun activitiesat his academy at the BNMInstitute of Technology aftercoming to an agreement withthe management. “They haveallowedmetotrainfourplayersfirst, on alternate-day basis andsoon I can increase the num-ber to 10,” said Telang, whocoaches national-level playerslike Kushi V, Shreyal Telangand Samyak. With the SSLCexam scheduled on June 25, itis learnt that schools want to beextra cautious and are wary ofencouraging sports activities attheir premises.

TT clubs face starting trouble

Yashaswini Ghorpade, the top-ranked Indian in the U-15section, trains at the Skies International TT Academy which is

facing issues to reopen. DH FILE PHOTO/SK DINESH

Academies insideschool premises

denied permissionto re-open

▼▼▼VIVEK MV

BENGALURU, DHNS

BCCI eyes restart “inearnest” post monsoon

NEW DELHI, PTI: With a com-mitment to tour South Africain August followed by the IPLlikely in October, the BCCIseems ready with its resump-tion plan as it waits for theCovid-19 situation to improveand cricket to resume “in ear-nest” after the monsoon.

Cricket South Africa onThursday revealed thatthe BCCI has shown “will-ingness” to play three T20Internationals at the end ofAugust. This was after BoardCEO Rahul Johri said he ex-pects the sport to restart af-ter the monsoon.

India and South Africacould play three T20 Interna-tionals at the end of August aspart of a prior “agreement”,provided the situation aris-ing out of the pandemic im-proves substantially for gov-ernments on both sides togive a go-ahead. The fixturesare currently earmarked forlate August but CSA’s actingchief executive Jacques Faul,encouraged by the BCCI’s“willingness”, said both par-ties are not averse to havingthe series at a later date.

“India wants to honour itsagreement. If it’s postponed,maybe a bit later,” Faul said

during a virtual press con-ference on Thursday. “We’vehad a very good discussionwith them (BCCI),” the CSAexecutive added.

Johri, while addressing awebinar on Wednesday, gavesome insight into the BCCI’splans going forward.

“We are going to be guidedby the Government of Indiain its entirety, whatever arethe government guidelines iswhat we’ll follow...Cricketingactivity in earnest can startpractically only after the mon-soon season,” he said.

India’s monsoon seasonlasts from June to Septem-ber. There is speculationthat IPL might be conductedin October-November if theT20 World Cup in Australiais postponed.

He also highlighted themany logistical issues thatare going to crop up becauseof the new safetyyyt protocols tominimise the risk of infection.

He also touched on thechallenges the Board willface while conducting India’slengthy domestic season.

“In this changing scenariothe scheduling of domesticcricket needs to be completelyre-looked at”.

Gambhir chooses Tendulkarover Kohli in ODIs

MUMBAI, PTI: Former Indiaopener Gautam Gambhirhas chosen legendary SachinTendulkar over current skip-per Virat Kohli as a betterbatsman in the ODI format,consideringthechangedrulesof the game and the Mumbai-kar’s longevityyyt of career. Ten-dulkar, who retired in 2013,played463ODIsandamassed18, 426 runs with 49 hundredsat an average of 44.83.

Kohli has played 248 ODIsand scored 11, 867 runs with43 tons at an average of 59.33.

“Sachin Tendulkar, be-cause probably with onewhite ball and four fieldersinside the circle, it will be Ten-dulkar for me,”Gambhir saidon Star Sports show ‘CricketConnected’. Nowadays, aone-day innings is played withtwwwt o white balls and with three

powerplays. In the first powerplay (overs 1-10), twwwt o fieldersare allowed beyond the 30-yard circle, while in the sec-ond powerplay (overs 10-40)four fielders are allowed. Inthe last powerplay (overs 40-50), five fielders are allowed.

Gambhir feels that thechange in rules has helpedbatsmen. “It’s difficult be-cause Virat Kohli has donephenomenally well but Ithink the rules have changedas well, which has helped alot of new batters,” elaborat-ed Gambhir. “The new gen-eration, with two new balls,no reverse swingfive fieldersinside for the 50 overs.

“Probably I’ll go with Ten-dulkar if we see the longevityyytand the nature of the one-daycricket format during histime.”

Baton exchanges won’t beallowed in relay training,boxers will not have ac-

cess to rings and only singlesplayers will get to practice atindoor badminton courts, ac-cording to the Sports Authorityyytof India’s SOP for resumptionof training, the timeline forwhich is still not clear.

Athletics, hockey, badmin-ton, boxing and shooting wereamong the 11 disciplines whichwere permitted to resume out-door training following relax-ations in the lockdown to con-tain the Covid-19 pandemic.

Weightlifters, archers,cyclists, fencers, wrestlersand paddlers too can resumetraining with requisite safety

measures. The SOP, however,prohibits sparring for contactdisciplines and has barred theuse of swimming pools for now.

“Human sparring, use ofboxing ring, etc. is prohibited,”the SOP said.

The SAI’s SOP came afterthe home ministry allowed theopening of sports complexesand stadia in its guidelines forthe fourth phase of the lock-down, which has been extend-ed till May 31. But there hasbeen no clarity on when thetraining will resume.

Even though the SOP willbe “applicable with immediateeffect”, resumption of sportsactivities across the countrywill depend entirely on localadministrations.

“The protocols of the SOP

will be effective from imme-diate effect, but the logisticsmight take time,”SAI secretaryRohit Bharadwaj said in an on-line press conference to unveilthe SOP.

“The SOP is a broad refer-ence document which can becustomised according to localconditions, which means theguidelines of a state govern-ment can supersede the SOP atany time. We have categorisedeveryttty hing but all depends onlocal administrations’ objec-tions,” he added.

The SAI secretary said theSOP is the first step towardsrestarting sporting activitiesacross the country.

AccordingtoSAIIIA SOP,aCov-id Task Force must also be con-stituted at each training centre

to guide and monitor all train-ees and staff within the centres.The Task Force will include thechief coaching staff from eachNSF as its member.

The centre-in-charge willbe the ex-officio chairman ofthe Task Force and responsiblefor overall implementation ofprotocols outlined in this SOP.

“The Covid Task Force shallwork closely with the coach-es and support staff to defineguidelines and protocols,” theSOP states.

Besides, the Task Force alsohas to ensure that each athleteand NSF provides a signedconsent form declaring theiracknowledgement of all thelimitations and risks associat-ed with training under currentcircumstances.

No sparring, no baton exchange: SAIIIAlays downnnw SOP for resummmu ptiiit on

NEW DELHI, PTI

BENGALURU, DHNS: Around40 golfers teed-off at thePrestige Golfshire on theoutskirts of the cityyyt here onThursday as sporting activ-ities slowly limped back tolife after lying in comatosefor nearly two months dueto the raging Covid-19 pan-demic.

“ We ’ r e e x t r e m e l ythrilled to have golfersback here and playing,” saidNooralla Patel, AGM-GolfOperations of Prestige Golf-shire. “I’ve been in touchwith many of the regularsduring the lockdown andafter a month locked up intheir houses, all they want-ed to do was come and get around of golf.

“To finally come out andget a round must be a hugerelief for them. Although Ididn’thavemuch ofaconver-sation with them due to thestrict social distancing rulesin place, I could sense theirhappiness. There was a lotof interest but we had to re-strict the numbers to just 40-- 20 in the morning sessionand the other in the second.We want to take it step andstep and not bungle thingsby hurrying up.”

All the golfers who turneduponThursdayhad tofollowseveral rules that are beingput in place. Apart fromwearing masks and carry-ing their own sanitisers,they had to drive their ownbuggies and chit-chats werecompletely discouraged.The club house was out ofbounds with the facilityyyt pro-viding packaged food andrefreshments.

The Karnataka Golf As-sociation will resume oper-ations on Friday while theEagleton Golf Resort willkick-start activities fromMonday.

Golf finallytees-off at

Prestige

TOKYO, AFP: Olympics chiefThomas Bach agreed that2021 was the “last option”for holding the delayed To-kyo Games on Thursday,stressing that postpone-ment cannot go on forever.

Bach said he backed Ja-pan’s stance that the Gameswill have to be cancelled ifthe coronavirus pandemicisn’t under control by nextyear. In March, the Tokyo2020 Olympics were post-poned to July 23, 2021 overthe coronavirus, which haskilled hundreds of thou-sands around the world andhalted international sportand travel.

“Quite frankly, I havesome understanding for(Japan’s position) becauseyou cannot forever employ3,000, or 5,000, people inan organising committee,”Bach, president of the In-ternational Olympic Com-mittee, told the BBC. “Youcannot every year changethe entire sports scheduleworldwide for all the majorfederations. You cannothave the athletes being inuncertaintyyyt , you cannot haveso much overlapping with afuture Olympic Games.”

The IOC leader said it wasa “mammoth task” to reor-ganise the Olympics, whichhave never been cancelledoutside of the world wars.

However, Japanese of-ficials have been clear thatthey have no intention ofpostponing the Games againbeyond next year.

Bach warned that “no-body knows” how the situa-tion will play out, but said theIOC will act on advice fromthe World Health Organiza-tion. “We have establishedone principle, and this is toorganise these Games in asafe environment,” he said.

Bach wouldn’t say wheth-er a vaccine was a prereq-uisite, but was lukewarmabout holding the eventwithout fans.

No pushing Olybeyond 2021,

says Bach

Thomas Bach

METROLIFE DECCAN HERALDFriday

May 22, 202014

POPCORN

Tri-bhashapoof!

Boom time

Comic relief

Looks like India’sbiggest bank has

quietly removed Kanna-da from its pass books.Our central govern-ment wants us to followa three-language policy,with all three languagesbeing Hindi. As HenryFord once said, ‘Anycustomer can have a carpainted any colour thathe wants so long as it isblack.’

People acrossBengaluru, from

Yelahanka to Electron-ics Cityyt , heard a boomon Wednesday, andwent into a speculativefrenzy. What was it?A bomb? An earth-quake? UFO fllf ying by?Eventually, the defenceauthorities said it was‘probably’ caused by ajet fllf ying by and switch-ing from supersonic tosubsonic. Superherobuffs, meanwhile, werecoming up with theirown explanations. Onestory was that Rajinisir had celebrated therelaxxa ation of lockdownrules with a heartyytmeal, and had burped.Supersonic and subson-ic, it seems. Jujubi!

Being Men (@shakeelcc) is using a

movie still to talk aboutthe problems pandemicdoctors are facing.Doctors: We need

PPEs.Government:

Theatres fear dark days ahead

Many of the 615 single-screentheatres across Karnatakaare considering shuttingdown, according to a tradebody representing them.

K V Chandrashekar, presi-dent of the Karnataka FilmExhibitors’ Association,says big films going directlyto digital platforms willmean critical business goingaway from cinema halls.“Even if we open now,we can run only at 50per cent capacityyyt ,”he told Metrolife.

Earlier thisweek, several pro-ducers announcedthey were takingtheir films directlyto digital plat-forms, since cinemahalls are shut indefi-nitely because of thepandemic.

In a month, Chan-drashekar estimates, thetheatres collectively spendRs 10 crore just on salaries.They also pay propertyyyt tax andelectricityyyt , water and mainte-nance bills. He hopes producerswill understand the plight ofcinema halls, and not bypass themin favour of OTT platforms.

Multiplex worriesA statement put out byINOX and PVR Cinemas

earlier this week,insisting on

theatrerelease of

big films,hasn’t

gone down well withproducers, directors

and distributors.D K Ramakrishna

(Praveen), presidentof the Kannada FilmProducers Associ-ation, says aboutRs 600-700 crore

is held up because ofthe pandemic, and that is whythe producers are exploringalternative release options.

OTT platforms can help small produc-ers but are not so good for big-budgetfilms, he says.

“The experience is not the same on asmall screen,” he observes.

M Narasimhalu, secretary KarnatakaFilm Chamber of Commerce, believesthe audiences will come back to thecinema halls.

Producers’ woesRockline Venkatesh, pro-ducer, says the pandemichas added to the woes ofproducers.

He is currently produc-ing Darshan-starrer ‘RajaVeera Madakari Nayaka’on which he says he is

spending Rs 75 crore.“I have taken a bank loan to complete

this project. Banks may give you sometime to repay the loans, but not all mon-

ey-lenders understandthe constraints of produc-ers,” he adds.

Director and producerVijayalakshmi Singhsees a heartening trend:

young people poolingtheir money to makefilms.

“They becomeequal shareholders in the project andaccordingly distribute the profits. Thisensures nobody is burdened,” explainsVijayalakshmi.

She believes financiers in the Kannadafilm industry will make room for nego-tiation in crisis situations such as thepresent one.

Big films goingdirectly to OTTwill hasten thedeath of cinemahalls, say tradeinsidersNINA C GEORGETEAM METROLIFE

Urvashi theatre, near Lalbagh. There are 615 single-screen theatres in Karnataka. DH PHOTOS BY B K JANARDHAN

Exhibitors fear big films going directly to digital platforms will mean critical busi-ness going away from cinema halls.

D KRamakrishna

RocklineVenkatesh

THERES SUDEEPTEAM METROLIFE

Apparel stores open withnew trial-room practices

As the lockdown eases,many clothing andfffA ashion stores are

switching to new trial-roomprocedures. The concernsare many. Can clothes spreadCovid-19 infection? Whathappens after a customerhas tried out a piece of cloth-ing? Would the pandemic putan end to trial rooms?

Metrolife called up severalapparel and fashion outlets,and found them approachingthe problem with new proce-dures of steaming, sanitisingand quarantining.

Levi’s is ‘quarantining’for 48 hours all clothes triedand not bought. The brand,known for its jeans and youthwear, has a dedicated spacefor trial-room clothes. Fash-ion brand Soch said it had asimilar procedure in place.

Three items onlyIndian-wear brand Biba’soutlets in Indiranagar,Kamanahalli and HSRLayout are open. It allowscustomers to try on amaximum of three items.Clothes tried and not boughtare steamed before they arereturned to the racks. A rep-resentative we spoke to saidthe trial rooms were beingsanitised eight times a day.Customers not comfortablewith trying in-store can takehome clothes and exchangethem within five days. Thesame sanitisation procedureis followed with returnedclothes.

Fabindia allows trials, andis also steaming clothes triedout by customers, and san-itising the trial rooms afterevery use. PN Rao on MGRoad, which specialises inmen’s suits, follows a similarprocedure. It is steamingevery item after trial andspraying the trial room withdisinfectant after every use.

Its tailoring service is alsoopen, and measurementsare taken with precautions inplace, a representative says.

At Pantaloons, trial roomsare cleaned after every useand clothes ‘quarantined’for 36 hours after trial. Arepresentative says clothesare kept away in a box untilthey are brought back to theracks.

Indian Terrain, whichdescribes itself as a premiumbrand for men and boys, isallowing minimal use of thetrial room. A sample piece isgiven to customers who cantry it for size. This sampleis air-dried for an hour andsanitised with a spray afterevery wear. The trial room is

cleaned every twwwt o hours andafter every customer uses it.

Not all stores havechanged, though. A high-endfashion store on 100ft Road,Indiranagar, allows trialswith no special sanitisationprocedures.

No trial or exchangeThe Jockey store on 100 FtRoad follows a strict ‘no trial,no exchange’ policy. Therepresentative we spoke towas unclear if this is a policyfollowed by all outlets. Maxis one of the only stores notallowing trials across outlets.Most chain brands such asFabindia, Soch, Levi’s andMax have a blanket tri-al-room policy across states.

They are steamingand quarantiningclothes tried on bycustomers

Experts recommend washing clothes after every trial. Sincethat is not possible in most stores, steaming and ironing is

the next best option. PICTURE FOR REPRESENTATION.

KRUPA JOSEPHTEAM METROLIFE

A thiiih rd of all BMTC busesback, 75 wiiiw th e-ticketing

Public transportationresumed in Bengaluruon Tuesday after twwwt o

months, but only 2,200 busesof a total 6,500 (33 per cent)are plying currently.

To meet the needs of thepublic, while the BMTCis covering the entire cityyyt ,the focus is on high densityyytroutes such as Majestic toYelehanka, Majestic to Elec-tronic cityyyt and to Marathalli.

The BMTC is going bysome simple rules to protectpassengers against thepandemic— only 30 peoplein a bus, and masks mustbe worn at all times. And toavoid contact, no tickets arebeing issued. If you want totake a BMTC bus, you need toget a pass. The weekly pass ispriced at Rs 300 and is validfor seven days, while a weeklypass comes for Rs 300.

Only at bus stationsWeekly passes are issued at65 bus stations across thecityyyt from 7 am to 7 pm, whiledaily passes are issued by con-ductors. Many commutersare complaining about thepass fares. The likelihood of aperson travelling for Rs 70 islow, and without the option ofcarrying forward the balance,many commuters will endup spending a lot of moneyover and above what theywould have if tickets had beenissued.

The BMTC says it is takingmeasures to introduce digitalticketing. In the pilot ver-sion, digital ticketing involvesthe use of credit cards, pay

wallets and QR codes. Thiswill be available in 75 busesand 15 depots.

It will take a while to beimplemented across the cityyyt .

Cleaned once a dayAll buses are disinfected oncethey return to the depots.Sanitising betwwwt een trips isdifficult, a senior official says.“Conducting temperaturechecks for passengers is notpossible because of the sheernumbers. With frequentstops, it is not logisticallyviable,” he explains.

Tests are conducted fordrivers, conductors andother BMTC staff every dayat the depots. Passengers, hesays, would have to exercisediscretion when using publictransportation, and avoidcommuting if sick.

Limited entryIn order to ensure that only30 passengers travel in a busat a time, the BMTC is lim-iting entry. “If the seats arefull, no one will be allowed toenter,” says another official.

The staff are only nowgetting used to the new rules.“We are talking to our creweveryday about the impor-tance of following our guide-lines. We suspended a driverand conductor for allowing70 passengers to travel at atime,” the official says.

However, the seats are

not placed twwwt o metres apart,which means one infectedpassenger could put at least30 people at risk.

Regardless of the un-certainties, the decision torestart public transportationwas inevitable, says urbanarchitect NareshNarasimhan.

“The government ismaking decisions in goodfaith. India needs to get backon its feet and people needto be more conscious of thedecisions they make,” he toldMetrolife.

Efffff orts are on to maintain hygiene but social distancing in not easy to achieve in buses.DH PHOTO BY JANARDHAN B K DOESITWORK?

Dr Pratik Patil, consultant, infectious diseases, FortisHospital, says there is no understanding yet of how tosanitise clothes against the coronavirus.“It can survive for days depending on the material, soquarantining clothes is not always a good solution,” hesays. He says the best option is to wash the clothes afterevery trial and iron them on high heat.“Heat has been proven to affect the virus and the effectof soap on the virus is well-known,” he explains. Washingafter every trial is not a viable option for clothing stores,so he recommends ironing them. The risk can’t becompletely ruled out, he says. As for trial rooms, theymust be wiped down with disinfectant after every use;simply spraying it is not enough. He advises shops toadhere to all safety norms — make masks compulsory,don’t let in anyone with a fever, cold or cough, and promotethe use of hand sanitiser before touching anything.

CHANGEINSCHEDULEBMTC buses are not following their pre-lockdownschedules. The BMTC is not clear on trips and frequencies.The new schedules are not updated on the app either.

FRENCHBIRYANISERVEDDIGITALLY

The first Kannadafilm to be directlyreleased on OTT canbe seen from July 24.Pannaga Bharana,director of ‘FrenchBiryani,’ says the film

was ready for releasewhen the lockdown was announced.“We made the film for a multiplexaudience and I feel that we havedone the right thing by giving it to anOTT platform. Even if the theatresopen, the audiences will not come tothe theatres for at least two or threeweeks. OTT is the best option at themoment,” says Pannaga. AmazonPrime has bought the film. “Atheatrical release means spendingat least Rs 70 lakh to Rs 80 lakh onlyon publicity. Here, the producer hassaved the cost. It is a win-win forboth OTT and the producer,” saysPannaga. The film is produced byPuneeth Rajkumar.

PUNEETHBLOCKBUSTERFORBIGSCREENz Puneeth Rajkumar starrer‘Yuvarathnaa’ will have atheatrical release, says directorSanthosh Anandram. Made ona mega budget with 35 well-known actors, it is a youth-driven

and family-oriented film andhas to be watched only in thetheatres, he says.“We will wait for things tosettle down and release it inthe theatres. OTT is not the

place for such high-budgetfilms,” says Santhosh. He saysproducers of high-budget filmswill survive only if their projectshit the theatres. “Multiplexowners should acknowledge

that producers are the wheels ofthe film industry. While single-screen theatres have beensupportive, multiplexes haveaccorded more space to non-Kannada films,” adds Santhosh.

SanthoshAnandram

Puneeth Rajkumar in ‘Yuvar-athnaa.’ The film will have a theat-rical release in September.

KANNADAFILMSSETFORTHEATRERELEASEz Dhruva Sarja’s ‘Pogaru’z Darshan’s ‘Roberrt’z Puneeth Rajkumar’s ‘Yuvarathnaa’z Sudeep’s ‘Kotigobba 3’z Yash’s KGF-2

z Duniya Vijay’s‘Salaga’

A still from‘French Biryani’

VijayalakshmiSingh

PannagaBharana

DIRECTTOOTTz Gulabo Sitabo

(Hindi)z Shakuntala Devi

(Hindi)z Ponmagal

Vandhal (Tamil)z Penguin

(Tamil-Telugu)z Law (Kannada)z French Biryani

(Kannada)z Sufiyum

Sujatayum(Malayalam)

Daily andweekly passesare beingissued insteadof tickets, but‘high’ prices area sore point

DISTANCINGATBUSSTOPSWith 20,000 bus shelters inthe city, monitoring all of themis impossible, says a BMTCofficial.“We will supervise areas withlarger crowds. The public has tofollow the queues and maintaindistance from each other fortheir own safety,” he says.

PASSPRICEMAKESNOSENSEMany people are furious they have to pay Rs 70 evento board a BMTC bus. That is the price for an all-daypass. A forum of bus passengers is campaigningagainst the irrational pricing. Few who go to workwithin the city would spend that much on bus fares.The Bus Prayanikara Vedike (@BBPVedike) hastweeted: ‘Make travel free or keep a flat fare of Rs 5up to 10 km, Rs 10 up to 20 km. We can’t understandhow people who run this city think the urban poor canpay Rs 70 to travel. Lockdown wiped out savings, theyneed to work now, need free travel. ‘