THE ASIANAGE › wp-content › uploads › 2020 › 03 › The-Asia… · combat it. This is the first time Mr Modi will address the public on this issue. He also chaired a meeting

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New Delhi: Prime MinisterNarendra Modi will addressthe nation on Thursday at 8

pm, during which he willtalk about issues relating toCovid-19 and the efforts to

combat it. This is the firsttime Mr Modi will address

the public on this issue. Healso chaired a meeting on

coronavirus on Wednesdayduring which he empha-

sised on actively engagingwith individuals, local com-munities and organisations

in chalking out mechanismsto fight the menace.

Vikari: UttarayanaTithi: Phalguna Bahula

Ekadasi till 5.59 am (Friday)Star: Uttarashada till 2.51 pmVarjyam: 7.14 pm to 8.59 pm

Durmuhurtam: 10.24 am to11.12 am; 3.11 pm to 3.59 pmRahukalam: 1.30 pm to 3 pm

SUNSET TODAY 6.32 PMSUNRISE TOMORROW 6.26 AMMOONRISE TOMORROW 3.29 AM

MOONSET TODAY 2.07 PM

Modi will addressnation today on

coronavirus threat

New Delhi: The ED will sooninitiate the process of atta-ching properties belongingto suspended AAP council-lor Tahir Hussain as part of

its money laundering probeagainst him. According to

sources, the agency hasalready started the process

of identifying his movableand immovable assets.Full report on Page 13

Delhi riots: ED toattach Tahir assets

New Delhi: In a major deci-sion, the Supreme Court onWednesday barred T. Shya-mkumar, a Cabinet ministerin the BJP-led Manipur gov-ernment, from entering the

state Assembly and orderedthat he would cease to be a

minister forthwith.Full report on Page 4

Manipur ministerremoved by SC

COUNTERPOINT

c m y k c m y k

TABLOID| 24WORLD| 11Karni Sena, not corona, stops shoot of Prithvirajstarring Akshay Kumar

SC asks Centre, J&K adminto inform by next week if itis releasing Omar Abdullah

NATION| 3Iraq’s Shia parties line up to oppose new PM-designate

THE ASIAN AGEwww.asianage.com RNI No. 57290/94, Regd No: DL-SW-05/4189/15-17 Vol. 27 No. 32 | 32 PAGES | `5.00

NEW DELHI THURSDAY 19 MARCH 2020

PAWAN BALINEW DELHI, MARCH 18

The Defence AcquisitionCouncil (DAC) headedby defence ministerRajnath Singh on Wed-nesday paved the wayfor the procurement of83 advanced Tejas Mk1Afighters for the IndianAir Force from the state-owned Hindustan Aero-nautics Ltd by finalisingthe contractual andother issues. These arelikely to cost `38,000crores to `39,000 crores.

The proposal will nowbe placed for the consid-eration of the CabinetCommittee on Security.This will be a majorboost to “Make in India”as the aircraft is indige-nously designed, devel-oped and manufactured.

The Light CombatAircraft Tejas indigeno-usly designed by Aircr-aft Development Agencyunder the Defence Res-earch and DevelopmentOrganisation (DRDO)and manufactured byHAL is going to be thebackbone of the IndianAir Force in future.

The IAF has alreadybought 40 Light CombatAircraft (LCA) TejasMk-1 aircraft [20 in Init-ial Operation Clearance(IOC) and 20 in Final■ Turn to Page 4

VINEETA PANDEYwith agency inputsNEW DELHI, MARCH 18

Union health ministerHarsh Vardhan onWednesday reviewed thepreparedness of hospi-tals, availability of test-ing kits, personal protec-tive equipment (PPEs),medicines and adequateisolation wards in view ofthe novel coronavirus,whose total number ofcases in India has nowrisen to 151. One privatediagnostic centre wasgiven a licence to conducttests while the applica-tions of three more areunder process after thegovernment allowed theprivate sector to doCovid-19 testing.

On Wednesday, 14 freshcases reported from vari-ous parts of the countryincluded one from theIndian Army. Out of thetotal numbers, 134 areactive cases under treat-ment, while 14 personshave been dischargedfrom hospitals. Therehave been three deaths sofar. The positive casesinclude 25 foreign nation-als.

The Indian Armyreported its first Covid-19case — a jawan testedpositive after returningfrom his home town. TheLadakh Scouts jawancaught the infection fromhis father, who returnedfrom Iran last month andalso tested positive. Thejawan was helping hisfamily during the quar-antine.

Meanwhile, the Unioneducation ministry hasasked the Central Boardof Secondary Education(CBSE) and all education-al institutions in thecountry to postponeexams till March 31 inview of the outbreak. Theorder also applies toexams organised by theUniversity Grants Com-mission (UGC), All IndiaCouncil for TechnicalEducation (AICTE),National Institute ofOpen Schooling (NIOS),the Joint EntranceExamination (JEE Main).

Dr Harsh Vardhan

directed hospitals toensure the adequateavailability of protectivegear for all healthcareworkers and asked teamsto visit the quarantinefacilities to assess andmonitor amenities. Healso reviewed quarantinefacilities for evacuees,including the ones at theairports and other keytransit points, in terms ofsegregation of passen-gers, transportation toquarantine facilities,health checks, etc. Thiscomes after passengersput into quarantine com-plained about the lack ofcleanliness in quarantinecentres in Delhi onTuesday.

A day after the healthministry issued guide-lines for private sectorlaboratories intending toinitiate Covid-19 testingwhile appealing to themto do the tests free of cost,Swiss firm Roche Diagn-ostics India received alicence for conductingtests after approval fromdrug regulator DCGI. TheDrug Controller-Generalof India is also assessinggiving a license to anoth-er private diagnosticfirm, bioMérieux, whichhas also sought approvalto conduct tests. Officialssaid two Indian diagnos-tic companies — Trivit-ron Healthcare andMylab Discovery Solu-tion — have also soughtapproval from DCGI forthe coronavirus testingkits developed by them.

The external affairsministry, meawhile, told■ Turn to Page 4

AGE CORRESPONDENTNEW DELHI, MARCH 18

There was total chaos atIndira GandhiInternational Airporthere on Wednesday afterpassengers were notallowed to leave the air-port premises withoutgetting tested for novelcoronavirus (Covid-19).

Passengers postedvideos on the social mediato show the chaos as theyconfronted security per-sonnel after their pass-ports were taken awayafter they had clearedimmigration. People wereseen arguing with the air-port police and some evenshouting at them to “shootus” as the police said theycoundn’t be allowed to gowithout medical check-ups.

Later, the governmentposted advisories andguidelines in the publicdomain for all passengersto understand why eachand every one has to betested on entering India.Taking to Twitter, theDelhi airport issued anadvisory asking peopletravelling from China,Iran, South Korea, Italy,Spain, Germany, France,UAE, Qatar, Oman andKuwait to undergo com-pulsory quarantine for aminimum of 14 days.

Delhi airport also saidafter the medical check-up, all symptomaticpassenegsr will be sentfor isolation while theasymptomatic would berefereed to the statehealth team. Amongasymptomatic passen-gers, those with high riskwill be sent for 14-dayquarantine while the rest

will be allowed to gohome after counselling.Passengers may also bestamped — HomeQuarantine — as beingdone in Maharashtra.

The government alsoasked the civil aviationministry to instruct theairport authorities tostagger the arrival offlights from Covid-19affected areas so the flowof passengers is main-tained for screening, andthere is no crowding anddelay in the medicalscreening.

Under the guidelines,passengers will arriveescorted by airline staffto APHO Health Countersfor Initial ThermalScreening, where symp-tomatic passengers■ Turn to Page 4


Terming reports ofthe “mass surveil-lance” on citizens as“extremely disturb-ing”, the CongressParty said onWednesday that the“sinister plot” thathas been put in placewas a transgression ofthe Right to Privacyguaranteed by theSupreme Court.

“The reports whichhave emerged in thepublic space areextremely disturbingbecause the govern-ment has decided itwill carry out masssurveillance againstthe citizens of India,”Congress spokesmanand Lok Sabha MPManish Tewari toldthe media.

A media report hassaid the governmentwas seeking call datarecords (CDRs) of allmobile subscribersacross several pock-ets of the country forspecific days over thepast few months.

Mr Tewari said asinister pre-meditat-ed, orchestrated plotwas put in place tounleash a mass ■ Turn to Page 4

Cong targetsgovt for bidto do ‘masssurveillance’

Furore as passports taken away


Retired ChiefJustice ofIndia RanjanGogoi willtake the oathas a nominat-ed member of the RajyaSabha on Thursdaymorning. Sources saidthat Justice Gogoi willtake the oath in Englishat 11 am. Assam chiefminister SarbanandaSonowal and financeminister Himanta BiswaSarma will be present inthe visitors’ gallery. ThePrime Minister is alsoexpected to be present inthe Upper House for theoccasion.

Mr Gogoi, who retiredas Chief Justice of Indiajust four months back,on November 17, 2019,and had headed benchesthat pronounced severalkey rulings, including inthe sensitive Ayodhyaland dispute case, wasnominated by the BJP-led NDA government tothe Rajya Sabha onMarch 16.

His nomination to theUpper House evoked alot of criticism. Severalretired judges, some hisformer colleagues, saidit was a violation of thejudiciary’s indepen-dence.

DAC clearsinduction ofTejas Mk1Ain Air Force

Miami, March 18: JoeBiden scored decisive vic-tories in all three majorDemocratic primariesTuesday, earning him anearly insurmountablelead over rival BernieSanders in their race forthe party’s presidentialnomination.

As the US grappled withcombating the spreadingcoronavirus pandemic,voters handed the formervice-president victory in

delegate-rich Florida, aswell as Illinois andArizona. The commandperformance speaks to theeagerness of many Demo-crats to coalesce around amoderate flag bearer, tochallenge RepublicanPresident Donald Trump,after several other candi-dates dropped out of thecontest in recent weeksand endorsed Mr Biden.

In Florida, the 77-year-oldwon 62 per cent to 23 per

cent against Mr Sanders, a78-year-old self-described“democratic socialist” sen-ator from Vermont.

Mr Biden was ahead by23 percentage points inIllinois, with 89 per cent ofprecincts reporting.

And in Arizona, wherepolls closed last, Mr Bidenwas coasting to a thirddefinitive win — and his19th victory in the last 24contests. — AFP

■ More on Page 11

Biden wins 3 key primaries, has huge leadSanders to ‘assess’campaign after lossWashington: Democ-ratic presidential hope-ful Bernie Sanders was reassessing hiscampaign future onWednesday after he lostthe three latest presi-dential primaries to rivaland former vice-presi-dent Joe Biden, hiscampaign said. — AFP

RABINDRA NATHCHOUDHURYBHOPAL, MARCH 18

The Supreme Court is setto decide the fate of 16rebel Congress MLAs ofMadhya Pradesh, whohold the key to the sur-vival of the Kamal Nathgovernment as the week-long political crisis in thestate took an ugly turn onWednesday, withCongress workers holdingprotests at several placesin MP.

The Supreme Court,which began hearing peti-tions on the ongoing polit-ical turmoil in the statefiled by various partiesand individuals, observedthat as of now the consti-tutional court (the benchhearing the case) knewthat 16 MLAs of MP,

lodged in a resort inBengaluru, tilted the bal-ance one way or the other.

A division bench ofJustices D.Y.

Chandrachud andHemant Gupta also madea significant observationthat the 16 MLAs may ormay not take part in the

business of the House, butthey cannot be held cap-tive since they need to beensured free exercise oftheir choice in thisregard. The bench alsodeclined an offer for theproduction of the MLAs injudges’ chambers andrejected a proposal tosend its registrar-generalto meet them. The courtthen adjourned the hear-ing in the matter tillThursday.

In another development,the Karntaka high courton Wednesday dealt a■ Turn to Page 4

■ Hearing in SC today ■ Diggy on dharna in Bengaluru

16 MLAs to decide Nath’s fate

Congress leader Digvijay Singh sits on a dharna nearRamada Hotel in Bengaluru on Wednesday after hewas allegedly not allowed by the police to visit MPCongress MLAs lodged at the hotel. — PTI

■ One private lab gets licence for tests, more in line; CBSE, others told to defer exams till March 31

14 new cases: India’s Covid-19 count 151Army reports 1stcase from LadakhNew Delhi: The IndianArmy reported its firstcase of the coronavirusafter a 34-year-old soldier from the Ladakh Scout regiment tested positive for the infection in Leh. The34-year-old jawan’sfather had recentlyreturned from Iran aftera pilgrimage and was inquarantine. PAGE 5


Gearing up to fightCovid-19, the Gurgaondistrict administrationhas shut all shoppingmalls, cinema halls,gymnasiums, swimm-ing pools, spas and wee-kly bazars till March 31.But pharmacies andmedical stores, groceryand supermarkets willremain open so thatpeople can buy essen-tials. The administra-tion has also putrestrictions on massgatherings.

■ More on Page 13

RAJIB CHOWDHURIKOLKATA, MARCH 18

The coronavirus scarehas hit the heart of theMamata Banerjee govern-ment — Nabanna, thestate secretariat — asWest Bengal home secre-tary Alapan Bandopad-hyay went under “homeisolation” along with hiswife Sonali ChakrabartiBandopadhyay, who isalso vice-chancellor ofCalcutta University, fromWednesday within twodays of his meeting withthe bureaucrat mother ofthe state’s first Covid-19patient who had taken herson to the secretariat

instead of admitting himto a hospital.

At least 10 more govern-ment employees, whowere around them, arealso in isolation at home.The development came aday after the Covid-19virus was confirmed inthe teenaged boy after his

return from the UK. Hecame into contact withthree Covid-19 patients ata birthday party inLondon. In a startling rev-elation, the OxfordUniversity student wasfound to be deliberatelyignoring advisories to getquarantined at a hospitalby using his mother’sinfluence.

Furious over his and hismother’s callousness,chief minister MamataBanerjee cautioned:“There is no space for theVIP or LIP. The rules tobe followed in my home■ Turn to Page 4■ Didi slams bureaucrat for callousness: Page 5

■ Top officer helps ‘positive’ son flout norms

Corona scare strikes heartof Bengal govt, Didi is livid

◗ The OxfordUniversity studentwas found to bedeliberately ignoring advisoriesto get quarantinedat a hospital byusing his mother’sinfluence

Delhi airport intotal chaos overCovid-19 testing

Gurgaon shuts allmalls, cinemahalls till March 31

◗ Rebel MLAs can’tbe kept in captivity,must take their owndecision: Top court

PAGE 3

AN APPEALWe are in a critical stage of our

fight against the coronavirus(Covid-19), and the coming 7-10

days will determine how weweather the disease. Pleasetake it seriously and follow

these precautions:

☛ Avoid all travel unlessabsolutely critical

☛ Avoid all gatherings, congregations and meetings

☛ Maintain social distance☛ Maintain personal hygiene;

wash your hands frequently☛ In case of any symptoms,

self-report to the nearesthospital

☛ Follow doctors’ advice☛ Heed government advisories☛ Don’t believe or spread

rumours— Editor-in-Chief

Former CJIGogoi set to take oathin RS today

pg 2THE ASIAN AGE | THURSDAY | 19 MARCH 2020 | NEW DELHI

NATION pg 3THE ASIAN AGE | THURSDAY | 19 MARCH 2020 | NEW DELHI

IN BRIEF

Plea filed againstminister Vardhan

Konark templeshut till March 31

Srinagar: Security forces onWednesday busted two

militant hideouts in Jammuand Kashmir’s Kulgam and

Pulwama districts, the police said. “Based on a

credible input, Police withthe assistance of security

forces busted a terroristhideout belonging to pro-

scribed terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayyaba in Akhal forestarea of Kulgam,” a police

spokesperson said. He saidpolice have recovered

incriminating materialsincluding explosive materials

used for making IEDs andother documents from thehideout. In another opera-

tion, the security forces, act-ing on a specific input

regarding the presence of ahideout of proscribed terroroutfit Jaish-e Mohammad in

Kamala forests ofAwantipora in Pulwama

district, launched a searchoperation there, the

official said. — PTI

Muzaffarpur: A petition wasfiled on Wednesday

before a court here accusingUnion health minister Harsh

Vardhan of failing to put acheck on “black

Marketing” of face masksand hand sanitizers, the

demand for which has spiked in the wake ofthe coronavirus outbreak.

Social activist TamannaHashmi filed the petitionbefore the court of Chief

Judicial Magistrate MukeshKumar where it has been

posted for hearing on March30. In his petition, Hashmi

has cited news channelreports of face masks

and hand sanitizers being inshort supply and those withthe stocks selling the same

at “10 times the price”.

Bhubaneswar: Inflow oftourists and pilgrims to

Odisha’s Puri and Konark hasdrastically fallen with the

state administration clamp-ing restrictions. Puri houses

Sri Jagannth Temple whilethe famous Sun Temple is

located at Konark. In templecity Bhubaneswar, there hasbeen significant drop in theflow of devotees to Lingaraj

Temple, a famous Shaivashrine. Chhattisa Nijog, thepremier servitors’ body ofSri Jagannath Temple, has

imposed restrictions onservitor activities and visit-ing devotees in view of thecoronavirus threat. At SunTemple in Konark, restric-tions have been imposed

on entry of visitors till March 31.


Seeking to allay apprehen-sions raised by several mem-bers in Lok Sabha regarding

the voluntary retirementscheme (VRS) package

being offered to employeesof state-owned telecom

companies BSNL and MTNL,Union minister for communi-cations Ravi Shankar Prasadassured on Wednesday that

the Centre has decided torevive the two PSUs, and

that it is also giving pack-ages to employees who

sought voluntary retirement.“We strongly believe thatthe existence of a Public

Sector Undertaking (PSU)like BSNL is important both

for public service and alsofairness in the entire system

of communication. BSNL hadsuffered bad times. In 2014-

15, 2015-16 it became a bitpositive,” Mr Prasad said

during Question Hour.The government, he

informed the Lower House,has taken a conscious deci-

sion to revive both BSNLand MTNL because they do

public service during occur-rence of natural calamities.

“BSNL’s revenue cost for theemployee is 74 per cent,

MTNL is 87 per cent, Airtel isthree per cent, Vodafone six

per cent and Jio four percent. Therefore, we had togo for a fresh approach to

this. Nearly 1 lakh employeeshave sought the voluntaryretirement scheme and weare giving them packages.Regarding 4G, the Cabinetdecision stands committed

to providing them 4G. It willbe given to them shortly,” he

added. VRS was introducedas a part of the revival

efforts of the two telecom firms.

CENTRE SET TOREVIVE BSNL

AND MTNL

2 terror hideoutsbusted in Kashmir

PARMOD KUMARNEW DELHI, MARCH 18

The Supreme Court onWednesday asked theCentre and the adminis-trator of Union Territoryof J&K if it is going torelease the former chiefminister Omar Abdullah— who is now in deten-tion under Public SafetyAct.

Omar Abdullah wasdetained on August 4/5,2019, shortly before theabrogation of Article 370of the constitution andsubsequent bifurcation ofthe J&K into two UnionTerritories — J&K andLadakh.

Seeking to know ifOmar Abdullah wasbeing released, a benchcomprising Justice ArunMishra and JusticeM.R.Shah said, “If you

are releasing him, thenrelease him soon or wewill hear the matter onmerits.”

Asking the lawyerappearing for the Centreand J&K administrationto take instructionwhether Omar Abdullahis going to be released,the court adjourned thehearing indicating thatthe further hearing in thematter may take placenext week when Justice

Mishra and Justice Shahwould be sitting again.

As senior counsel KapilSibal, appearing for peti-tioner Sara AbdullahPilot, urged the court tofix a short date, the courtsaid the under the exist-ing curtailed arrange-ment in the wake ofCOVID-2019, only sixbenches are sitting and itis not certain when theirnext turn would come.

“Probably next week we

are sitting and the matterwill be taken up at thattime,” the bench said.

Omar’s sister SaraAbdullah has challengedthe further detaining herbrother and former chiefminister Omar Abdullahunder the PSA and priorto the invoking of thePublic Safety Act, the for-mer Jammu & KashmirChief Minister wasdetained under Section107 of the Code ofCriminal Procedure.

Section 107 of the CrPCprovides for steps to betaken by magistrate forkeeping peace.

The release of formerChief Minister FarooqAbdullah a few days agohas raised hopes of thepossible release of othertwo former ChiefMinister Omar Abdullahand Mehbooba Mufti.

SC query to govt on Omar’s release■Ex-CM was detained before abrogation of Article 370

AGE CORRESPONDENTSNEW DELHI, MARCH 18

The government onWednesday said that inJammu and Kashmir,democracy was reachingto the grassroots level andthere has been no other 8-month period in the regionmore peaceful than sincethe abrogation of Article370 last August to the pres-ent date.

Replying to a discussionon Demand for Grants forthe Union Territories ofJammu, Kashmir andLadakh, finance ministerNirmala Sitharaman saidher government wasensuring development andpeace to Jammu andKashmir. Ms Sitharamansaid that the fact thatdemocracy was beingbrought to the grassrootsin J&K was visible by howfree and fair Block levelelections were held.

“We are planning aware-ness building workshopsfor youth. I request mem-

bers to see the welfareactivities which have beenhappening in Kashmir,”she said.

Taking on the Congressover allegations of humanrights violation inKashmir, the finance min-ister said why was theparty not bothered abouthuman rights whenKashmiri Pandits werebeing driven out of theirhome land.

At this, Congress MPManish Tewari said that

when the exodus ofKashmiri Pandits hap-pened, then it was the V.P.Singh government backedby the BJP which was inpower.

Ms Sitharaman respond-ed by saying that the BJPwithdrew support to theV.P. Singh government andafter that the Congresswas in power and whycouldn’t it rehabilitate thePandits in the Valley.

Participating in thedebate, Union minister

Jitendra Singh here hasnot been a more peacefuleight-month period inJammu and Kashmir sincethe abrogation of article370.

Mr Singh said that theOpposition was not wor-ried about over 40,000 peo-ple who lost their lives inthe last 30 years of mili-tancy, but was only both-ered about two-three fami-lies. He went to the extentof saying that there was asection of people who con-

sidered leaders like thethree former CMs as“potential troublemak-ers”. “Prophets of doomhave been proved wrong.That is their agony. It wassaid earthquake will fol-low and volcano willerupt,” he added.Initiating the discussionon behalf of the Congress,Mr Tewari earlier saidthat by abrogating Article370, the Centre had failedto listen to the voice of thepeople there.

Opp. not worried about 40,000 people who lost their lives in the last 30 years of militancy

Govt ensuring peace, growth in J&K: FM

Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman speaks at LokSabha. — PTI

New Delhi, March 18:The government onWednesday rejectedclaims of Opposition par-ties in Lok Sabha thatJammu and Kashmir hasbeen converted into an“open jail”, asserting thatthe newly created unionterritory is open fortourists and shut for ter-rorists.

Intervening in a discus-sion on budgetary alloca-tions for Jammu andKashmir and Ladakh,minister of state forhome G. Kishan Reddysaid the Modi govern-ment wants the youth ofthe UT to hold the nation-al tricolour and comput-ers, instead of Pakistaniflags and stones.

He said misinformationis being spread thatJammu and Kashmir hasbeen converted into an“open jail”.

He said it is incorrect.“It is not an open jail. It isopen for all today. It isopen for tourists. It isshut for terrorists,” theminister said.

— PTI

J&K open for tourists, shut for terrorists: MinisterJammu, March 18:Describing the budget forJammu and Kashmir as“hollow”, the Congress onWednesday said it fallsshort of people’s expecta-tions in view of the“unprecedented situa-tion” and changes in theaftermath of revocation ofspecial status and bifurca-tion of the erstwhile stateinto two UnionTerritories.

The Centre on Tuesdaypresented a `1 lakh crorebudget for Jammu andKashmir for 2020-21, andsaid the “highest ever”allocations reflect its com-mitment to make theUnion Territory “a modelof development”.

Reacting to the budgetproposals, Jammu andKashmir PradeshCongress Committee(JKPCC) chief spokesper-

son Ravinder Sharmatermed it as a “routinestatement of receipts andexpenditure which is lessthan PlanningCommission norms of atleast 20 per cent increaseover last year.”

“The budget is short ofthe people’s needs andexpectations in varioussectors in view of thepromised massive devel-opment and infrastruc-ture creation after comingdirectly under the centralgovernment,” he said in astatement here.

Mr Sharma said therewas a lot of shortfall offunds in various sectorsdue to the alleged messcreated by the previousPDP-BJP coalition govern-ment due to large scaleneglect and pendency ofdevelopment works.

— PTI

J&K’s `1Lcr budget hollow, claims Cong

Lucknow, March 18:Setting a record of beingthe first BJP chief min-ister to complete threestraight years in officein Uttar Pradesh, YogiAdityanath said onWednesday that his gov-ernment has succeededin changing people’s per-ception of the state andled it on the path ofdevelopment, trust andgood governance.

Citing “improvement”in law and order as oneof the achievement, heclaimed that no riot hastaken place in the stateand the crime rate hasslumped.

Mentioning closure ofillegal slaughter housesand setting up anti-romeo squads for womensecurity as its achieve-ments, Yogi Adityanathobserved that his gov-ernment has turnedchallenges into opportu-nities. The chief minis-ter also asserted that thestate was number one inimplementation of cen-tral schemes such asPradhan Mantri AwasYojana and SwachhBharat Mission.

— PTI

CM: People’s perception of UP hasnow changed

Omar Abdullah

●● SEEKING TO know ifOmar Abdullah wasbeing released, a benchcomprising Justice ArunMishra and JusticeM.R.Shah said, ‘If youare releasing him, thenrelease him soon or wewill hear the matter onmerits.’


The Supreme Court onWednesday said that 16rebel Congress MLAs,who can tilt the powerbalance in Bhopal, can’tbe kept in captivity andmust be free to take theirown decision.

“One concern that wehave is the Speaker has-n’t decided for these 16.They (Congress) say 16have been whisked awayto Bengaluru. We can’tcompel MLAs to attendthe proceeding (of theAssembly) but what wecan do is to ensure theycan take their own deci-sion. That’s the duty of aconstitutional court,”said Justice D.Y.Chandrachud headingthe bench, also compris-

ing Justice HemantGupta. While emphasis-ing that the rebel MLAswill exercise free will indeciding the course theywant to take, the courtbrushed aside the sugges-tion that they can be pro-duced before the judges

in their chambers or theRegistrar General ofKarnataka high courtcould go and meet themon Thursday. Addressingits concern that rebellawmakers should exer-cise their choice on theirown volition, the courtasked, “How does a courtensure that there is a freeexercise of choice thatthese members can make.As a constitutional court,we also have to dischargeour duties.” In an obvi-ous reference to MadhyaPradesh governor send-ing a communication toCM Kamal Nath — basedon the TV coverage ofrebel lawmakers’ pressconference — saying thatprima facie he has lostmajority support, JusticeChandrachud said, “Wecan’t say that we have

seen at TV and so we arecertain. We are a consti-tutional court and wehave to ensure this.” Thecourt observation camein the course of the hear-ing where Congressinsisted that 16 MLAswho have been“hijacked” to Bengaluruand being kept in “captiv-ity” be brought back toBhopal.” Taking note ofCongress insistence thatthey be allowed to inter-act with the rebel MLAsand BJP resisting thesuggestion, JusticeChandrachud said, “It istheir choice whether theywant to enter (the stateAssembly), comply withwhips etc. But certainly,when allegation is thatthey are being held incaptivity, we have to seethey are at free will.”

SC: MLAs can’t be kept in captivity

Bhopal: Senior BJPleader Shivraj SinghChouhan onWednesday dubbedDigvijay Singh ofCongress as the“biggest dramatist”,hours after the lattertried to meet rebelMLAs of his party inBengaluru but prevent-ed by the police.

Digvijay biggestdramatist: Shivraj

Bhopal, March 18: Rebel CongressMLAs from Madhya Pradesh whoare staying at a resort inBengaluru, on Wednesday saidthey went there voluntarily.

Issuing video messages, therebels said they didn’t want tomeet senior party leader DigvijaySingh who was briefly detainednear the resort on Wednesdaymorning. Madhya Pradesh chiefminister Kamal Nath and otherleaders of the Congress have beenclaiming that the rebel MLAs werebeing held in captivity by BJP.

High drama unfolded this morn-ing near the resort, as Singh, a two-time Madhya Pradesh chief minis-ter, staged a protest accusing thepolice of not allowing him to meetthe legislators, following which hewas detained briefly and releasedlater. Mr Singh, along withKarnataka Congress chief D.K.Shivakumar, is meeting police topbrass seeking opportunity to meetthe MLAs. Mr Singh hit out atUnion home minister Amit Shahand Karnataka chief minister B.S.Yediyurappa, accusing them of try-ing to block their efforts to get intouch with the legislators.

“We have come here voluntarilyon our own wish; we have got toknow from some people that a fewleaders from Madhya Pradeshincluding Digvijay Singh and someMLAs have come here. We don’twant to talk to anybody,” Congressrebel MLA from Sumawali AidalSingh Kansana said. — PTI

MLAs: Came to Bengaluru voluntarily

Umasankar


IN BRIEF

Badrinath highwayshut March 22-31

Wanted Naxalleader surrenders

Chandigarh: The PunjabPolice here on Wednesday claimed to have recovered

from an accused a portion ofthe 30-kg gold robbed at

gunpoint from a branch of afinancial services company

in Punjab’s Ludhiana inFebruary. Kunwar Vijay

Pratap Singh, IG, OrganisedCrime Control Unit of

the Punjab Police, said 10 kgof gold was recovered from ahideout of gangster AmritpalSingh in Mohali. Amritpal wasnabbed by an OCCU team on

Tuesday, he said, adding that a pistol and two rifleswere recovered from him. Amritpal is the brother ofnotorious gangster Jaipal

Bhullar and was one of thesix people who were involved

the case. The accused hadtargeted a branch of India

Infoline Finance Limited (IIFL) on Gill Road in

Ludhiana in February, rob-bing the gold worth `13 crore

at gunpoint. Police have sofar arrested four people

in the case.— PTI

Rishikesh: The Rishikesh-Devprayag-Badrinath

Highway will remain closedfor traffic from March 22 to

March 31 for cutting ofhardrock portions of the hills

on the stretch under the all-weather Chardham

road project. Cutting ofhardrock portions of hills

between Kaudiyala andDevprayag is to be carried

out on a war footing duringthe period to speed

up work on the project, Tehridistrict magistrate V.

Shanmugam said. The con-struction agencies want to

finish the rock cutting workespecially in the hard rock

portions on the route beforethe start of the Chardham

Yatra season in April for thesafety and convenience of

pilgrims, he said.— PTI

Malkangiri: A Maoist, carry-ing a reward of `2 lakh on hishead for his alleged involve-

ment in the killing of anAndhra Pradesh MLA, surren-

dered before the police in Odisha’s Malkangiri district

on Wednesday. Apart fromCPI (Maoist) member Samba

Khara alias Randev (27),seven militias of the banned

outfit also surrendered, asenior police officer said.

Khara, who joined thebanned outfit in February

2017, got disillusioned with the violent path ofNaxalism, Malkangiri SP Rishikesh D Khilari said.

— PTI

Punjab robbery: 10kg gold found

SONU SHRIVASTAVAMUMBAI, MARCH 18

National Congress Party(NCP) chief SharadPawar has been sum-moned by the KoregaonBhima inquiry commis-sion to appear before it onApril 4.

Mr Pawar will have toappear before the com-mission in Mumbai, asthe scheduled hearing bythe commission was shift-ed there in view of thecoronavirus outbreak.The commission’s tenureends on April 9, however,it is likely to get the fifthextension, sources said.

A two-member inquirycommission is conduct-ing the probe into the 2018Koregaon-Bhima vio-lence. In February, socialgroup Vivek VicharManch member SagarShinde had filed an appli-cation before the commis-sion, seeking summoningof Mr Pawar in view ofcertain statements madeby him in the media aboutthe 2018 caste violence.Taking note the applica-tion, the commission hadfirst sought time from MrPawar for his appearanceand later sent him thesummons.

In his plea, Mr Shindecited a press conference ofSharad Pawar held onFebruary 18. As per theapplication, at the pressmeet Mr Pawar allegedthat right-wing activistsMilind Ekbote andSambhaji Bhide had cre-ated a “different” atmos-phere in Koregaon-Bhima.

NCP chief spokespersonand Cabinet minister forminority affairs Nawab

Malik said that the com-mission had asked MrPawar for a convenientdate for appearing beforeit. Mr Pawar hadinformed the commissionthat owing to the ongoingParliament session, hewould appear on April 4in afternoon at 3 pm.

He also said that MrPawar had already sub-mitted his statement inthe form of an affidavitbefore the commission inOctober 2018.

The state governmenthad given an extension oftwo months to the com-mission saying that theprobe should be complet-ed and the report shouldbe submitted by April 8, asenior official had said.

Chief Justice ofCalcutta high court, JayNarayan Patel is headingthe commission, whichalso includes former chiefsecretary and the presentchief information officerof Maharashtra, SumitMullick as secretary. V.V.Palnitkar is serving asthe registrar of the com-mission. The commissionfunctions with the powersof a civil court in twolocations: the PublicInformation Office atMadam Cama Road,Mumbai and the ZillaParishad building inBundgarden, Pune.

Koregaon-Bhimainquiry panelsummons Pawar


In a major decision, theSupreme Court onWednesday barred T.Shyamkumar — a Cabinetminister in BJP-ledManipur government —from entering the StateAssembly and orderedthat he would cease to be aminister forthwith as aconsequence of theSpeaker’s inordinate delayin deciding on his disqual-ification.

Mr Shyamkumar hadwon the Assembly polls in2017 as a Congress candi-date but later joined the

BJP government. And aplea for his disqualifica-tion, filed by a Congressleader, has been pendingwith the Speaker sinceApril 2017. A bench head-ed by Justice RohintonFali Nariman and JusticeS. Ravindra Bhat said thatT. Shyamkumar is“restrained from enteringthe Legislative Assemblytill further orders of thiscourt. Needless to add, hewill cease to be a ministerof the Cabinet immediate-ly.” The court passed theorder taking recourse toits plenary powers underArticle 142 of theConstitution. The

Supreme Court had onJanuary 21 taken note ofinordinate delays in decid-ing 13 pleas for disqualifi-cation of MLAs pendingsince April 2017 and hadasked the ManipurAssembly Speaker todecide within four weeksthe plea for MrShyamkumar’s disqualifi-cation too.

The top court took thedecision noting thatdespite it giving time toManipur AssemblySpeaker to take decisionon the petitions seekingthe disqualification ofMLAs who had crossed thefloor, the Speaker did not

take any call. On Tuesday,the Speaker appealed tothe court to defer the mat-ter till March 28, sayingthat by then, there woulddefinitely be a judgmenton the disqualificationapplications.

The court noted thatgiven the extraordinaryfacts in the present case,“we are constrained to useour powers under Article142 of the Constitution ofIndia”. It also noted thatsolicitor-general TusharMehta sought time tillMarch 28, assuring thatdecision on disqualifica-tion petitions would betaken by that time.

However, senior counselKapil Sibal, appearing forthe petitioner KeishamMeghachandra Singh, toldthe court that it (court)should have itself decidedthese cases as the Speaker,even after the one month’speriod given to him, didnot take decision.

Mr Sibal urged the courtto take up the matter anddecide it. The top court byits January 21, 2020, judg-ment had urged the parlia-ment to take a call for set-ting up an independenttribunal to “swiftly andimpartially” decide on thedisqualification of law-makers.


A day after PrimeMinister Narendra Moditold the BJP parliamen-tarians that the ongoingbudget session ofParliament will not becurtailed in the wake ofCOVID-19 scare, manyopposition MPs in theRajya Sabha onWednesday suggested thatthe session should be cur-tailed to practice “socialdistancing” being advo-cated by the governmentto limit the spread of thevirus. The session isscheduled to end on April3. The Upper House alsosaw for the first time someOpposition party MPswearing protective masks,to which Chairman MVenkaiah Naidu askedthem to remove as masksare not allowed in theHouse. To the opposition

members’ suggestion thatthe budget session shouldbe curtailed, Mr Naidusaid any decision in thisregard will be taken bythe the government inconsultation with stake-holders. Later, when theHouse took up theQuestion Hour at noon,proceedings had to beadjourned till 2 pm afterCongress members creat-ed an uproar over deten-tion of party MP DigvijaySingh in Bengaluru.

Maintaing that rules donot allow members to

wear masks in the Houseand that “it will be diffi-cult to conduct” proceed-ings if the chair wasdefied, Chairman MVenkaiah Naidu informed

“We have sanitised theentire ParliamentComplex. This is just forinformation. Secondly, thehand sanitisers have beenkept at various places.Thirdly, from time to time,all the necessary arrange-ments also will be made.In addition to these, ifmembers have any sug-gestions, they can conveyto the Secretariat or theycan convey to theChairman about the needto take some more steps asfar as this sanitisationand the required meas-ures are concerned.”However, Oppositionmembers urged that MPsshould be allowed todecide on using protectivegear.

Masks not allowed insideRajya Sabha, says Naidu

SC removes turncoat Manipur minister

M. Venkaiah Naidu

Sharad Pawar

Top court invokes plenary powers to bar minister T. Shyamkumar from entering Assembly

BY GAUTAM LAHIRIPARLIAMENT DIARY

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birlainitiated a tree plantation pro-gramme last year in the com-

plex of Parliament House. Led byPrime Minister Narendra Modi andsenior Cabinet ministers, leaders ofvarious political parties joined the

campaign. He launched the drive on the lawnsbetween Parliament library buildings TKR III in theParliament House estate. Every leader had plantedsaplings of different trees. Just after one year, allthose saplings grew into proper trees. The Speakerhas directed his office to send the photographs to allleaders who planted those saplings. Interestingly, allthe trees have names of the leaders who planted thesaplings. Apart from PM Modi’s name, the names ofleaders like Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, TMC leadersSudip Bandopadhaya, DMK leader T.R. Balu figuredin the trees. This is a tradition of the MughalGardens in President House.

SPEAKER’S OFFICE SENDS PICS OF SAPLINGSPLANTED BY POLITICAL PARTIES

As per directions from theparty supremo MamataBanerjee, TMC MPs not only

went inside the House wearingmasks, some of them decided to stayin quarantine for 14 days eventhough they are not affected by thevirus. The whip of TMC RajyaSabha party, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy,has written a formal letter to Chairman VenkaiahNaidu that he is declaring a self-quarantine for 14days and will not attend the House. One of the rea-sons given is that he generally sits near MOS parlia-mentary affairs minister V. Muraleedharan who isalready in quarantine though tested negative.

DIDI DIRECTS PARTY HOW TO PROTESTNON-ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE

On demand from the members, StandingCommittee on transport, civil aviation andtourism was called for a special meeting to

assess the impact on these industries following theoutbreak of coronavirus. Secretaries of the min-istries came with a detailed report and gave a power-point presentation for the perusal of MPs. But theRailway Board Chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav camewith a very sketchy report as per some members ofthe committee. They told him why he had not pre-pared a full-fledged report. The Chairman promisedto give a detailed report within the next few days.

RAILWAY BOARD CHAIRMAN DRAWS FLAKIN THE STANDING COMMITTEE

Mumbai, March 18: Sevencandidates, includingNationalist CongressParty (NCP) chief SharadPawar and Union ministerof state for social justiceRamdas Athawale were onWednesday elected unop-posed to the Rajya Sabha.

The election for theseven seats fromMaharashtra in whichAssembly members wereto cast their votes was tobe held on March 26.

NCP leader and formerminister Fauziya Khan,Shiv Sena’s PriyankaChaturvedi, formerCongress MP Rajiv Satavand Bharatiya JanataParty’s (BJP) UdayanrajeBhosale and BhagwatKarad were among thoseelected to the Upper

House. The officialannouncement of the elec-tions was made onWednesday, the last day ofthe withdrawal of forms.

On the basis of theirstrength, the three rulingparties (Shiv Sena, NCPand Congress) fielded fourcandidates, while themain Opposition partyBJP fielded three candi-dates, leaving little chancefor an additional candi-date in the fray.

Independent candidateRakesh Chavan filed hispapers on the last day offiling nomination onFriday but it was rejectedlater during scrutiny.

The biennial electionsfor the seven seats ofRajya Sabha wereannounced along with 48

other seats across thecountry. Along with Pawarand Athawale, NCP’sMajid Memon, BJPs AmarSable, Shiv Sena’sRajkumar Dhoot and anIndependent candidatemember Sanjay Kakadeare retiring on April 2from Rajya Sabha.

Meanwhile, former statepresident of the BJP’sMahila Morcha, InduGoswami was elected toRajya Sabha fromHimachal Pradesh.

Ms Goswami, 52, wasdeclared as elected unop-posed by HimachalPradesh Assembly secre-tary Yash Paul Sharma.

She had filed her nomi-nation on March 13 andthe scrutiny of her paperswas done on March 16.

Accompanied by chiefminister Jai Ram Thakur,state BJP chief RajeevBindal and education min-ister Suresh Bhardwaj,Goswami was handed overa certificate of her elec-tion to the Upper House bystate assembly secretaryYash Paul Sharma.

Speaking to the media,the chief minister said theBJP had sought coopera-tion from the Congressand other Opposition par-ties, and they decided notto field candidates for theRajya Sabha seat.

The ruling BJP has atotal of 44 MLAs in the 68-member HimachalPradesh Assembly. Twoindependent MLAs arealso supporting the BJP.

Congress has 21 mem-

bers, whereas the CPI(M)has one MLA in the stateassembly.

The BJP’s central elec-tion committee had onMarch 12 clearedGoswami’s name from thestate for the Rajya Sabhaelection. Ms Goswami hadresigned from the post ofchief of state BJP’sMahila Morcha in Julylast year. Earlier, she hadunsuccessfully contestedthe last assembly electionsfrom Palampur con-stituency where she lost toCongress candidateAshish Butail. One of thethree Rajya Sabha seatsfrom the state will fallvacant as Vipolve Thakurof the Congress is set toretire from the UpperHouse on April 9. — PTI

Pawar, Athawale elected unopposed to RS

■ Continued from Page 1the Lok Sabha that 276Indians are infected withcoronavirus abroad. Thisnumber includes 225 inIran and 12 in the UAE.The Centre issued anadvisory to states afterincidents of racistremarks againstNortheast people on coro-navirus. Several north-easterners narrated onthe social media how theywere being mistreatedafter being mistaken forChinese nationals.

Delhi has so far report-ed 10 positive cases,which includes one for-eigner, while UttarPradesh has 16 cases,including a foreigner.Maharashtra has 42cases, including three for-eigners, while Kerala has27 cases, which includestwo foreign nationals.Karnataka has 11. Thenumber of cases inLadakh rose to eight andin Jammu and Kashmirto three. Telangana hasreported six cases, whichinclude two foreigners.Rajasthan has alsoreported four cases,including that of two for-eigners. Tamil Nadu,Andhra Pradesh, Odisha,Uttarakhand and Punjabhave reported one caseeach. Haryana has 17cases, which include 14foreigners.

Former Union ministerand BJP MP SureshPrabhu has self-quaran-tined himself at his resi-dence for the next 14 daysas a precautionary meas-ure following his returnfrom Saudi Arabia, wherehe had gone to attend ameeting on March 10.Sources said Mr Prabhuhas tested negative forCovid-19.

Delhi lieutenant-gover-nor Anil Baijal discussedwith chief ministerArvind Kejriwal meas-ures to contain the spreadof coronavirus in thenational capital. The totalnumber of coronaviruscases in Delhi has risento 10, which includes oneforeign national. A Delhigovernment employees’association urged the CMto close all governmentoffices for a week due tothe coronavirus out-break.

In UP, among the posi-tive cases is a resident ofNoida who recentlyreturned from Indonesia.The number of positivecases for Covid-19 in thedistrict now is four. Thestate government saidstudents of Classes 1-8 ofall government primaryschools will be promotedwithout having to appearin examinations.Gurgaon in Haryana has,meanwhile, shut down allmalls.

Karnataka CM B.S.Yediuyurappa called anemergency Cabinet meet-ing to discuss the coron-avirus outbreak and indi-cated the lockdown in thestate will continue. TheBJP decided not to holdany protests or demon-strations for a month inview of the coronavirusoutbreak, party presidentJ. P. Nadda said.

With schools in almostall states shut, the HRDministry decided tolaunch e-classes onSwayam Prabha DTHchannels for school stu-dents. In Jaipur, theRajasthan high court saidit will function for onlytwo hours a day tillMarch 31 and take upurgent matters.

151 corona cases■ Continued from Page 1and yours are the same.Nothing can be more

callous than roamingaround with symptomslike an irresponsible per-son which can infect oth-ers also. I do not supportif someone with symp-toms does not undergoany test just because ofhaving an influentialmember in the family.”

Landing at the KolkataAirport on March 15, the18-year-old boy, whosefather is a doctor, skippedthe “thermal screening”for Covid-19, giving thereference of his mother, aWest Bengal Civil Service(Executive) officer postedas a special secretary inthe state home and hillaffairs department atNabanna, which alsohouses the chief minis-ter’s office. He was thenadvised to visit theInfectious DiseasesHospital at Beliaghata fortests, but he did not,sources said.

The teenager returnedin his family car to hishome at an upscale high-rise apartment inJadavpur off the EasternBypass. Alerted by air-port officials, the state

health department con-tacted his mother andstrongly recommendedthat she take her son to ahospital.

On March 16 morning,the woman bureaucrattook her son to M.R.Bangur Hospital, wherehe was examined in thedeputy superintendent’soffice and was asked totake admission at the IDHospital.

But, instead, his mothertook her son in her officecar to Nabanna, whereshe attended a meetingwith Mr Bandopadhyay,besides working in herchamber, the sourcesadded. On the same daythe chief minister alsochaired a high-levelreview meeting on Covid-19 with MrBandopadhyay and othersenior officials atNabanna. In the evening,the boy visited a shop-ping mall and a club atPark Street.

He is now being kept ata separate ward in isola-tion at the ID Hospital,where his parents andtwo drivers are also inisolation. Nabanna has,meanwhile, been totallysantised.

CM Mamata is livid

■ Continued from Page 1blow to the Congress as itrejected a writ petitionfiled by Congress’ RajyaSabha nominee and for-mer chief ministerDigvijay Singh who hadsought access to the 16rebel party MLAs.

Earlier, high drama wasseen in Bengaluru as sev-eral senior MP Congressleaders, including MrSingh, held a staged sit-inbefore the resort wherethe 16 MLAs were stay-ing, demanding access tothem. The policedeployed at the resortstopped them from storm-ing the resort and laterdetained them. TheCongress leaders, whoincluded six ministers ofthe Kamal Nath govern-ment, were later released.

The 16 legislatorspromptly made a plea tothe Karnataka director-general of police in writ-ing, saying they did notwant to meet theCongress leaders ofMadhya Pradesh andsought protection fromthem. They also releasedvideos which went viralon the social media tomake their stand clear onthe matter.

In another develop-ment, chief ministerKamal Nath onWednesday dropped hintsthat he might visitBengaluru to meet the 16MLAs if needed.

Mr Nath regretted thathe had called Union homeminister Amit Shah andKarnataka chief minister

B.S. Yeddyurappa on thephone seeking theirintervention to secure therelease of the 16 CongressMLAs, but did not get anyresponse from them.

He reiterated his asser-tion that he was not goingto face a floor test toprove his majority sincehe had on several occa-sions in the last 15months had won the trustvote in one form or anoth-er.

He dared the BJP tomove a no-confidencemotion against him in theHouse to dislodge his gov-ernment from power.

Former chief ministerand BJP vice-presidentShivraj Singh Chouhan,however, took a jibe athim for shying away fromfacing a floor test asordered by the governor,“reminding” him that hisgovernment had beenreduced to minority.

In another develop-ment, the BJP onWednesday filed a com-plaint with the ElectionCommission alleging anattempt by Mr Singh toinfluence the 16 MLAsahead of the March 26biennial Rajya Sabhaelections in the state.

Interestingly, governorLalji Tandon onWednesday snubbedAssembly Speaker N.P.Prajapati for seeking hisintervention in securingthe release of the 16 rebelCongress MLAs, remind-ing him that it was the jobof the executive (to freethe legislators).

16 MLAs to decide■ Continued from Page 1surveillance programmeon citizens of India, whichis an absolute transgres-sion of the Right toPrivacy guaranteed by theSupreme Court in a 9-0judgment.

“We strongly condemnand we deprecate thisassault on fundamentalfreedoms which have beenprovided in theConstitution and havebeen interpreted by theSupreme Court. An‘Orwellian state’ is soughtto be created and we wouldask the government, wewould hold the govern-ment to account that inviolation and transgres-sion of the rules,” he said.

He said that the ruleswere tightened by the thenUPA government in 2013on obtaining call datarecords (CDRs) withregard to electronic inter-ception of all telephonesand with regard to cybercommunications. “Whyand how are these thingsbeing violated withimpunity on a dailybasis?”

When asked that the gov-ernment had said that itwas for security reasons,Mr Tewari said: “I amsorry, but national securi-ty cannot be the fig leaf inorder to legitimise everycrime.”

He added: “There is alaid-down procedure andthat laid-down procedureprescribes that only forreasons recorded in writ-ing can call records besummoned. You cannot doit on a blanket basis.”

Surveillance:Congresstargets govt

■ Continued from Page 1Operation Clearance(FOC) version, with 16fighters and four trainersin each]. The productionof LCA Mk-1 in IOC,which means the fighterjet meets the minimumrequirements for opera-tional deployment, hasalready been completedand they are deployed bythe IAF. The first produc-tion unit of Tejas Mk-1 in

Final OperationalClearance (FOC) onTuesday took to the skiesfor its maiden flight. Theremaining 15 fightersfrom FOC are planned tobe delivered to the IAFduring the next financialyear.

The DAC also gave itsapproval for the acquisi-tion of indigenousdefence equipment forabout `1,300 crores.

DAC clears Tejas induction

■ Continued from Page 1would be isolated and movedto a designated hospital. Theremaining asymptomatic pas-sengers will be allowed tomove to the immigrationcounters with passports and acopy of the SRF (Self-Reporting Form).

After immigration clear-ance, the passport of passen-gers will be retained by immi-gration officials and they willbe taken to the medical teamfor testing.

“India works because count-less Indians do. Night or day,rain or shine. Went tonight tomeet immigration, health,security and airport officials@DelhiAirport who areresponding to #COVID chal-lenge,” tweeted externalaffairs minister S. Jaishankar.

Meanwhile, actress SonamKapoor also posted a messageon social media lauding theefforts of the Indian govern-ment and airports in screen-ing passengers. She said thatin London, from where shereturned, there was no screen-ing while at Delhi airportthere were proper medicalcheckups to screen passen-gers.

“I just want to say that it’sincredible the way the author-ities are handling the situa-tion. It’s very commendableand laudable. We went toimmigration and they againre-checked where we’d been onour passports, which wasextremely responsible... I justwant everybody to know thateverybody is doing the bestthat they can do. The govern-ment is doing the best that itcan do. And we’re all are inthis together,” actress SonamKapoor said.

Delhi airportin total chaosover testing


SHORT TAKES

Man spreads fakenews, arrested

Man arrested for‘anti-corona’ juice

Covid hitsRailways hard

Bhubaneswar: Four persons,including three web-media

journalists, were onWednesday arrested on thecharges of spreading misin-

formation and misleadingmessages on social media

regarding coronavirus in different places of Odisha.

As per reports, the four per-sons were arrested in

Kendrapara on the charge ofposting a false and mislead-ing message in social media

platforms regarding coronavirus.

Hassan: Owing to fear ofcontracting Covid-19 (Novel

Corona Virus), passengersopting for refunding after

cancellation of their journeytickets by trains from South

Western Railways, Mysurudivision has gone up to `3.5

lakh a day from its earlierdaily refund of `60,000 to`70,000 costing railways

dearly. To make the mattersworse for the Railways, apart

from losing revenue fromcancellation of bookings,

even reservation bookingshave also dipped drastically,

says Railway officials whilestating that trains from SWR

conenct to various parts ofthe country and there occu-pancy rate has been down.

“Some trains record lessthan 20 per cent occupancy

rate,” said DivisionalManager of South Western

Railways, Mysuru divisionAparna Garg on Wednesday.

Thiruvananthapuram: Givinga major relief to tipplers, the

Kerala government hasdecided not to close bars,

beer parlours and retail out-lets, drawing flak from doc-

tors and anti-liquor activists.The Opposition parties, IMAand anti-liquor activists hadraised the demand for clos-ing down bars, liquor retail

outlets as they feared itcould result in the spread ofCovid–19. However, the gov-

ernment has rejected thedemand and directed bar

owners to take precaution-ary measures like increasing

the gap between tables,sanitising interiors of bars.

Border guarding forces to get additional funds and resources to set up facilitiesFUTURE | READY

AGE CORRESPONDENTTHIRUVANANTHAPURAM,

MARCH 18

State-level BankersCommitee has recommend-ed one year moratorium onall bank loans in Kerala. Therecommendation was madeat the subcommittee of the

bankers committee meetinghere on Wednesday. The

moratorium has been pro-posed for 12 months begin-ning from January 31, 2020. Besides, it has also recom-

mended disbursement ofloans for buying essentialcommodities. Loans from

`10,000 to `25,000 will beprovided to people who are

not having income due tothe problems caused by

Covid –19. SLBC convenorAjith Krishnan said the mora-

torium will be applicable topeople who have repaid

loans without any delay tillJanuary 31. The facility willbe provided only to those

who make a request in thisregard. Those availing the

facility will have to pay high-er interest. The Committeeon Tuesday had respondedpositively to Kerala govern-

ment’s request for moratori-um on all bank loans.

LOANS UPTO `25KFOR BUYING

ESSENTIAL ITEMS

RAJNISH SHARMANEW DELHI, MARCH 18

In view of the coronavirusoutbreak, the Union homeministry is now workingon a long-term policyalong with Central para-military forces to dealwith such crisis in future.While the role of paramili-tary forces, particularlyITBP whose facility in thenational capital was usedfor quarantine of suspect-ed coronavirus patientshas been appreciated bythe Central authorities,the home ministry is nowworking on a detailedblueprint to furtherenhance capability and

capacities of all Centralpolice forces to deal withsuch crisis in future.

Ministry sources saidthe border guarding forceslike the ITBP, BSF and SSBwill be provided addition-al funds and otherresources to set up state-of-the-art quarantine andmedical facilities right atthe border itself in thedays ahead. In addition,these forces, along withCRPF, the biggest paramil-itary force, will furtherdevelop such health facili-ties at their “large cen-tres” in the hinterland.

The issue, sources said,was discussed at lengthduring a series of review

meetings that Union homesecretary Ajay Bhalla hashad over the last twoweeks with different agen-cies to deal with the ongo-ing medical crisis.

“Home minister AmitShah has given clearinstructions that while itis important to deal with

the immediate crisis but atthe same time the paramil-itary forces, which play acrucial role, in any majornatural or man-made dis-asters, should be providedfurther assistance toincrease their health andmedical facilities forfuture as well,” a senior

ministry official said.Following government

directives, all land bordershave been completelysealed and forces are onhigh alert on ensuringthat no human movementtakes place from the neigh-bouring countries. Hencethe home ministry is nowplanning that quarantineand medical units shouldbe set up at major outpostsalong the borders withadjoining countries.

The respective paramili-tary forces will soonundertake a detailed sur-vey to asses where thesefacilities can be set upalong the borders. In someareas, though some basic

facilities do exist thenthese would be enhancedmuch more.

“Such health care facili-ties will not only be usedto quarantine or provideimmediate medical assis-tance to deal with such cri-sis in future but will alsobe used by the securityforces personnel workingin harsh environments inthe border areas,’’ the offi-cial added.

In addition, home min-istry plans to considerablyenhance budgetary alloca-tions for paramilitaryforces at their major cen-tres even in the hinterlandlike the ITBP’s Chawlacamp.

Thiruvananthapuram: Theattempt to make fast buck in

the name of coronavirusproved costly for a restau-

rant owner in Varkala inThiruvananthapuram district

of Kerala. The restaurantowner was arrested by

police for putting up a board“anti-corona juice” available.The restaurant owner who is

a foreigner was taken intocustody for a brief periodand issued strict warning

against repeating such actsbefore being let off. The 60-

year-old person of Britishorigin has been running therestaurant "Coffee Temple"

for many years near the Cliffon the side of the beach.The juice made of ginger,

lemon, gooseberry wasnamed as “anti-corona”

drink. A glass of juice waspriced at `150. Varkala had

reported a Covid-19 positivecase recently.

New Delhi: The homeministry on Tuesdayasked all Central para-military forces to cancelnon-emergency leavesfor its security person-nel and be fully prepareand remain in high alert

to deal with the coronavirus menace. HomeMinistry has asked tosecurity personnel toavoid travel, unlessabsolutely essential, forfear of contracting coro-na virus.

Kerala not to shutbars, liquor outlets

(Clockwise) Parliamentarians observe silence during an obituary reference in Rajya Sabha during the Budget Session of Parliament onWednesday. A few MPs were seen wearing mask due to the Covid-19 scare. An official uses a thermal screening device on a devoteeat Garh Ganesh Temple in Bikaner. A woman uses hand sanitiser at the entrance of a shopping mall in Vaishali, Ghaziabad. MPsNavneet Ravi Rana and Himadri Singh sanitise their hands at Parliament. Congress leader P. Chidambaram wears a mask atParliament. Four Trinamul Congress MPs came to the House wearing face masks. Trinamul Congress MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray saidthat he has gone on home quarantine in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and would not take part in the rest of the BudgetSession. — PRITAM BANDYOPADHYAY, PTI

PAWAN BALI NEW DELHI, MARCH 18

In first case of coron-avirus in Indian Army, ajawan from Ladakh Scoutshas tested positive forCovid-19.

The Indian Army hasquarantined 10 soldiers atthe Ladakh ScoutsRegimental Centre in Leh,after the jawan from theCentre tested positive forCovid-19. The Center hasalso been put under a lock-down. The 34-year-oldjawan’s father had recent-ly returned from Iran aftera pilgrimage and was inquarantine.

As a precaution, IndianArmy has postponed allcourses starting from com-

ing Monday. The courseswhich are in progress willcontinue with precau-tions. However, all non-essential training, confer-ences and movement ofthe Indian Army has beencancelled. It has askedArmy personnel that allnon-essential foreign trav-el must be avoided.

The jawan, who has test-ed positive for coronavirushad taken casual leavefrom February 25 tillMarch 1 and had rejoinedthe Centre on March 2. Hisfather had returned from

Iran after pilgrimage byAir India flight onFebruary 27 and was quar-antined from February 29at Ladakh HeartFoundation.

“Even though soldierhad rejoined from hisleave but he was helpinghis family also during thequarantine period and wasstaying at Chuchot villagefor some time as well,”said sources. The father ofthe jawan reported posi-tive for Covid-19 on March6 and he was isolated atSonam Nurboo MemorialHospital in Leh.

The soldier was alsoquarantined on March 7and was detected to be pos-itive on 16 March and wasisolated at SNM Hospital.

The sister of the soldier,his wife and two childrenare also quarantined atSNM Heart Foundation.

An Army officerattached to the College ofMilitary Engineering inPune has been asked toself-quarantine after heshowed symptoms of flu.

The wife of another offi-cer at the institute has alsobeen asked to self-quaran-tine. Both of them are yetto be tested for coron-avirus. As a precautionarymeasure, at some placesofficers are being quaran-tined after returning fromleave while at other loca-tions body temperature isbeing checked to seewhether they are have anysymptom of infection.

Army reports its first case of coronavirus■ Jawan from Ladakh Scouts test positive, Leh centre put under lockdown


In the wake of theCOVID-19 outbreak, theBJP has decided not tohold any protest ordemonstration for amonth. All state units ofthe party have been toldabout the decision and acircular has also beenissued in this regard.

“Prime MinisterNarendra Modi had yes-terday in theParliamentary partymeeting, had desiredthat because of coron-avirus we should avoidany type of agitation,dharna, demonstration.Keeping that in view, theBJP has decided that forthe next one month theparty will not partici-pate in any agitation ordemonstration,” saidBJP president J.P.Nadda. He added thatthe BJP leaders andworkers will be spread-ing awareness regardingthe coronavirus andguidelines on how toprevent oneself from thevirus infection.

Mr Nadda said, ifrequired, four to fiveoffice-bearers will sub-mit memorandums toauthorities concernedwhenever necessary toavoid of “conglomera-tion of people.” He addedthat all party units havebeen asked to spreadawareness about coron-avirus and they mustalso discuss the do’s anddont’s in small groups.

“While on one hand wehave to see to its that wekeep ourselves clean, wealso need to make surethat we do not panic... Asthe PM had said whileaddressing the Saarcnations, that while wedon’t panic, we have toensure that the coron-avirus does not take onpandemic proportions,”the BJP president said.

Nadda: BJP notto hold protestfor one month

YUSUF JAMEELSRINAGAR, MARCH 18

Even as the Jammu andKashmir governmenthas banned the entry ofall foreign nationals inthe Union Territory(UT) considering theincreasing threat ofcoronavirus, an Italiantourist couple onWednesday managed toreach Srinagar and wasseen enjoying a shikara(water gondola) ride onthe Dal Lake.

Official sources con-firmed that the Italiancouple is among, at least,four foreigners whoarrived here from Delhidespite the ban on theentry of foreign nation-als. How they wereallowed to come out ofSrinagar airport whereall foreign nationals asper a decades’ old prac-tice have to report to theForeigners’ RegistrationCounter is being investi-gated, the sources said.

The sources added thatthe travel history of theItalian couple and twoother foreign tourists isbeing examined. Italybeing one of the coun-tries worst hit by Covid-19, the presence of thecouple created panicamong people in the DalLake area. Reports saidthat the four tourists,whose names have beenwithheld, checked in ahouseboat near NehruPark in the lake area.The other two foreigntourists who reached onWednesday are reportedto be from the UnitedStates and Russia.

Srinagar’s DC ShahidIqbal Choudhary askedpeople not to panic andassured that these for-eign tourists will be sentback by Thursday.“There is nothing toworry about. The adviso-ry was issued last nightbut these tourists werealready present in Indiaand they have toured toRajasthan and otherareas. We have doneproper screening butthey will be sent backtomorrow,” he was quot-ed as saying by a localnews agency KNT.

Baseer Ahmad Khan,adviser to L-G, had onTuesday issued an orderbanning entry of foreigntourists in entire UT. TheJ&K government haddeclared the outbreak anepidemic and authorisedsurveillance personnel toenter any premises tolook for suspects infectedwith the deadly virus.

ITALIAN COUPLEARRIVES INKASHMIR VALLEY,TRIGGERS PANIC

RAJIB CHOWDHURIKOLKATA, MARCH 18

Actor-turned TrinamulCongress MP fromJadavpur MimiChakraborty, whoreturned from England onTuesday, has gone under“self isolation” at homefor two weeks as a precau-tionary measure in viewof the coronavirus out-break, hours after she wasseen coming out of theKolkata Airport withoutwearing a mask.

The absence of the maskinstantly triggered a con-troversy among netizensin wake of the callousnessand influence shown bythe first corona viruspatient of West Bengal,and his bureaucrat moth-er to dodge quarantineand isolation.

Mimi returned from theUK on Wednesday morn-ing along with her driverPritam. She had gone to

London for the shooting ofher film Baazi.

“I have returned from aplace in the UK via Dubai.So all the precautionshave been taken. I havetold my parents not tomeet me at home. Myfather is above 65 years.The first seven days, I willbe at home,” the LokSabha member told themedia.

Although her co-starJeet was seen leaving theairport wearing a mask,Mimi, who passedthrough “thermal screen-ing” and other Covid-19protocol, did not wear any

such mask. In the eveningshe however made manytweets to explain why shedid not wear a mask.

“And thank you for allyour love nd concern, i amperfectly fine nd is underself isolation.meeting noteven my parents, dogs ndhouse help. m using dispos-able plates (for now).Hopeeverything comes out ingood shape.. And one morething plzz dont spreadrumour or panic. Be awarerest you know what to do.#covid_19,” she said onTwitter.

Meanwhile, Mimi’s driv-er landed in trouble as hisneighbours at Baranagarin northern outskirts ofthe city wondered why healso did not go under “self-isolation” like her. Theyeven called the helplinenumber 100 and com-plained against Pritam ofnot taking precautions.Later, the police askedPritam to stay at home.

Mimi, her driver returnfrom UK, lands in trouble RAJIB CHOWDHURI

KOLKATA, MARCH 18

Stung by the Opposition’scriticism of her govern-ment, chief ministerMamata Banerjee onWednesday slammed thefemale bureaucrat of herown department and herson for dodging the quar-antine protocol with “cal-lousness and influence”.She affirmed at the statesecretariat that no onewould get a special treat-ment in quarantine orisolation.

“Many people arereturning home herefrom abroad due to leavein school and collegesthere. There is no spacefor the VIP or LIP. Therules to be followed in myhome and yours are same.Nothing can be more cal-lous than roamingaround with symptomslike an irresponsiblewhich can infect othersalso,” Ms Banerjee said.

“Keep yourself in isola-

tion. I do not support ifsomeone with symptomsdoes not undergo any testjust because of having aninfluential member in thefamily or visits a shop-ping mall soon afterreturning from abroad,”the chief minister added.

She also instructedpolice to take stern actionagainst those who spreadfake news on the coron-avirus outbreak.

Earlier, state BJP chiefDilip Ghosh wondered,“The Central governmentis carrying out strictcheck-ups at all entrypoints, including the air-ports. How can such a mis-take take place even afterthat? I think that childrenof some special personsare being spared of.”

“As a result other peoplein the society will beaffected. How could a boybe allowed to go withouthis quarantine? The dan-ger is greater to us fromthose who work at highlevels,” he added.

CM Mamata slams topofficer for callousness

AGE CORRESPONDENTSRINAGAR, MARCH 18

An influential amalgam ofreligious organisations inKashmir on Wednesdayimposed certain cubs ongatherings in the Valley’smosques and appealed peo-ple to follow instructionsissued by doctors and med-ical scientists strictly toprevent the spread ofCovid-19.

In a statement, MutahidaMajlis-e-Ulema Jammuand Kashmir, a conglomer-ate of religious organisa-tions headed by chiefMuslim cleric MirwaizUmar Farooq, while

expressing deep concernover the spread of thevirus, called upon theimams, preachers andmanagements of mosquesto refrain from organisingevents which require largegathering, restrict Fridayprayers to brief sermonsin Arabic and two fard(obligatory) rakats ofnamaz.

It asked the worshippersto leave the mosquesimmediately after theserituals and offer custom-ary sunah and nawafilprayers at home.

It further requested eld-erly and sick people not togo to mosques but stay at

home and pray there only.The organisation alsorequested other wor-shipers to wash handsproperly before enteringand leaving places of wor-ship, avoid handshakesand hugs while greetingeach other, limit felicita-tion and condolence meet-ings by shortening theirduration period and followthe advice of healthexperts in letter and spirit.

Various religious organi-sations and clerics inKargil have alreadyannounced the cancella-tion of Friday congrega-tions and other religiousgatherings in the district.

Clergy imposes curbs on religious gatherings in Valley

Non-emergency leaves cancelledGovt plans to equip paramilitary to deal with future crisis

The Army has quar-antined 10 soldiersat Ladakh Scoutscentre in Leh

Mimi Chakraborty

EDIT pg 6THE ASIAN AGE | THURSDAY | 19 MARCH 2020 | NEW DELHI

The World Health Organisation is quite clear on how to contain theCovid-19 pandemic. The most effective way to prevent infections andsave lives is breaking the chains of transmission, says its director-gen-eral Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Once again, our message is: test,

test, test,” he said the other day, underlining the importance of testing. TheGovernment of India and the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR)seem to have taken a cue from the WHO advisory and moved fast to incorpo-rate private labs to conduct Covid-19 tests as per the ICMR guidelines. It hasallowed 73 private laboratories to take up the test other than the 52 that are inthe government sector now, taking the total number of testing labs to 125. Thetests must be done free of cost, as per the ICMR advisory.

While the government move must be appreciated, one must keep in mind thefact that India continues to be one of the least tested among the 170 Covid-affected countries. As per ICMR data, a total of 12,351 samples from 11,461 indi-viduals have been tested as on March 18. This amounts to 8.95 tests per millionpopulation. True, the figure is improving: it was five per million population onMarch 13, but is woefully inadequate compared with the other nations such asItaly and South Korea who have four-figure numbers for the same. Onlynations such as the United States, which have been roundly criticised for theirinadequate response, have figures similar to that of India. The ICMR testing

strategy, which was released on Tuesday,advises that all asymptomatic people whohave undertaken international travel, all con-tacts of laboratory-confirmed positive casesand healthcare workers managing respiratorydistress or severe acute respiratory illnessshould be tested only if they become sympto-matic with fever, cough, difficulty in breathingand so on. It remains to be seen if limiting thetests to symptomatic people is a wise idea. It issuggested that one of the reasons why SouthKorea was able to limit the casualties to theminimum despite having the large number ofaffected people was that it went in for highernumber of tests: it was 4,099 per million peopleas on March 9. The ICMR has said it reviews

the situation frequently. The research body of the government must factor inthe data available from such countries and revise the strategy accordingly.

The permission granted to private laboratories to test should be seen only asthe first step to co-opt the sector into the fight that India is undertaking againstCovid-19. This is not a challenge the government alone can take up; Indiastands nowhere in per capita availability of qualified medical professionals orhospital beds compared to some of the worst-affected European nations. Still,Spain chose to nationalise all its private hospitals to meet the exigency. Indiamust now prepare a plan to face the impending challenge, marshalling all theresources at the command of the government and the private sector. Andenhancing testing facilities is only elementary. As the WHO chief said, we can-not stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected.

19 MARCH 2020

Ahoy there, mates, give us your coordinates! It is a heady time for sol-diers, sailors and countrywomen as another of the last few remainingmale bastions fall — close on the heels of granting permanent commis-

sion to women in the Indian Army in February, the Supreme Court onTuesday extended permanent commission to women in all streams of theNavy, come bloody war or sickly season. It has directed the Centre to grantthis career opportunity to short service commission female officers withinthree months, while also granting pension benefits to retired women officersnot granted the same. The division bench headed by Justice D.Y.Chandrachud, which also included Justice Ajay Rastogi, was hearing theIndian Navy’s appeal challenging the 2015 verdict of the Delhi high court thatcleared it in Union of India & Ors vs Lt Cdr Annie Nagaraj & Ors.

Though it was the first of the three wings of the Indian armed forces to openup permanent commission to women – in 2008, it was granted to women in airtraffic control, education, law and logistics – while in 2017, three other streams– executive, electrical and engineering were opened up – the fact is that it doesnot allow women to be positioned on ships. But now the court has dismissedas flimsy the Centre’s argument that the Russian-made vessels used in theNavy do not have facilities for women. It has dubbed it as one of “101 excuses”and observed that “women officers can sail as efficiently as men officers”.

Indeed, even as there is debate on whether or not combat roles should begiven to women, they actually serve in this role in the Air Force, which lastyear qualified its first women fighter pilots. Last year, too, Sub-LieutenantShivangi became the first woman pilot for the Indian Navy. Navy chief Adm.Karambir Singh had then himself pointed out that women naval officersalready perform combat tasks, such as firing torpedoes and missiles at enemywarships while serving as observers and weapons systems officers on boardmaritime aircraft like the P-8I Poseidon.

Clearly, it is only “organisational issues” that were being used to denywomen Navy officers equality, as senior advocate Aishwarya Bhati argued onbehalf of Seema Chaudhary commissioned in the Indian Navy’s JudgeAdvocate General branch in August 2007. Chaudhary was among the 17female officers fighting this case. Bhati had also been the lawyer for BabitaPuniya and other petitioners in the women Army officers’ lawsuit. While thecourt was emphatic in stating that “to cast aspersions on the ability of womenand their role and achievements in the army is an insult not only to women,but also to the Indian armed forces”, let us pause a moment to acknowledgeour dues to these individual doughty warriors.

Call of the sea

Co-opt private sector infight against Covid-19

THE ASIAN AGET. VENKATRAM REDDY

Editor in Chief

Printer & Publisher: T. VENKATESWARLU

THE ASIAN AGE offices are located at:New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru National Youth Centre, 219 Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, New Delhi-110002. Phone: (011) 23211124.Mumbai: Sigma House, # 43, Ground Floor, R. A. Kidwai Marg, Near Wadala Rly Station, Wadala (West), Mumbai -400 031 Phone (022) 24195301 Fax (022) 24195347Kolkata: 4th Floor, Chowdhury Building, 8/1A Little Russel Street, Kolkata 700 071.Phone: (033) 2289 0676/77 Fax (033) 2289 0686Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office in the United KingdomAir surcharge for Kathmandu and J&K `1Published and Printed on behalf of and for◗ Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited, Jawaharlal Nehru National Youth Centre, 219 Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, New Delhi 110 002 at BFL Infotech Ltd., C-9, Sector-III, Noida -201301.◗ Mumbai: Dangat Media Pvt Ltd, Plot No 22, Digha MIDC, TTC Industrial Estate Area, Vishnu Nagar, Digha, Navi Mumbai-400708.◗ Kolkata: Satyajug Employees Cooperative Industrial Society Ltd, 13/A, Prafulla Sarkar Street, Kolkata 700 072. ◗ London: Quickmarsh Ltd, 8th Floor, Block 2, Elizabeth House, 39 York Road, London, SE1 7NQ.RNI Registration number: 57290/94Postal registration numbers: DL(S)-05/4189/15-17

This is not a chal-lenge the government

alone can take up;India stands nowherein per capita availabil-

ity of qualified medical professionals

or hospital beds compared to some of

the worst-affectedEuropean nations

Navigating uncertaintyin time of coronavirus

Let us face it.There are nocertainties inthe time of ap a n d e m i c .

Perhaps the only thingone can say with confi-dence is that while lifein the shadow of Covid-19 is tough for everyone,the most vulnerable peo-ple will suffer the most.

In the United States,where more than 100people have alreadydied, people are beingasked to avoid largecrowds, stockpile shelf-stable foods in case theyend up quarantined, andstay home from workand contact a doctor ifthey are ill.

But many low-incomepeople can’t afford to fol-low such advice easily;they are engaged inwork that can’t be doneremotely, and the major-ity of low-income jobsdon’t offer paid sickdays.

In India, the vastmajority of people workin the informal sector.Millions are daily wage-earners who don’t getpaid sick leave.

There is no playbookfor Covid-19, a new virusfor which there is novaccine as yet.

How do we navigateuncertainty and turbu-lence in the days tocome?

One way is to recog-nise that the pandemicis exposing every soci-ety’s weaknesses, be itin the developed ordeveloping world.

We must not fixate somuch on “numbers” ona daily basis. Instead, itis vital to take a hardlook at preparednessand contingency plansin every sphere and planfor the worst-case sce-nario.

How is India coping?The total number of

officially confirmednovel coronavirus casesin India has crossed 138,out of which 114 areIndian nationals and 24are foreigners. By thetime this column is pub-lished, the figure wouldhave shot up further inmost likelihood. Therehave been three deathsin the country so far.

At 39 cases, Maha-

rashtra looks like theworst-affected state, fol-lowed by Kerala. Thehigher numbers couldmean that these statesare doing a good job indiagnosing infectedcases.

The Indian Council ofMedical Research saysthere is no evidence that“community transmis-sion” has taken place tilldate. India is rampingup laboratory capacityand gearing up for moretests.

This is the time to lookat some of the pricklyissues which will be keyto how India managesCovid-19.

Take containmentstrategies, for example.These include “socialdistancing” measures aswell as quarantine mea-sures — both at homeand at the government'sisolation centres. Theseare meant to check thespread of the diseaseamong the community.

But there are dauntingchallenges here, and notjust of ensuring hand-washing with soap on amass scale.

There have been sever-al reported instances ofpeople suspected of hav-ing the coronavirusinfection in the countryrunning away fromquarantine facilities.Eleven persons whowere kept in isolationwards, and whose testresults were awaited,fled from a NaviMumbai hospital.

In Mirzapur, UttarPradesh, a man who hadbeen admitted to the iso-lation ward of a hospitalafter he complained offever and throat painescaped through a win-dow. He was interceptedand brought back. In anunusual move, theMaharashtra govern-ment has decided to“stamp” behind the leftpalm of all persons whohave been asked to be in“home quarantine” inthe wake of the coron-avirus outbreak.

All these incidentspoint to several disturb-ing realities. Many peo-ple harbour gravedoubts about the qualityof healthcare in publichospitals and there is

acute fear of social isola-tion and stigma.

Very few states have apublic health systemthat inspires trust in thepublic. The quality ofhygiene in many quar-antine facilities leavemuch to be desired

But fear and lack oftrust can have devastat-ing consequences forpublic health.

Then, there is the issueof stigma.

Across the world, therehave been severalinstances of racial slursdirected at people ofChinese origin justbecause Covid-19 origi-nated in Wuhan, China.

Prejudices are tum-bling out in India too.There have been severalreported instances ofpeople from the North-east being harassed andcalled “Coronavirus”.

It is vital to learn fromthe HIV and AIDS epi-demic and fight fear andstigma with solidarity.

India has to improveits public health facili-ties drastically so thatpeople are not terrifiedby the idea of being inisolation wards in gov-ernment quarantinefacilities.

Equally, we mustrealise that people areunlikely to come for-ward to report symp-toms if they do not trustthe system or are afraidof being stigmatised.

Finally, there are thecritical issues of capaci-ty and health security.The health authoritiessay the government isexpanding the numberof laboratories that cantest patients for Covid-19.

But there are otherissues relating to healthinfrastructure and test-ing kits. As of now, Indiahas about 1.5 lakh test-ing kits. Governmentscientists say India hasplaced orders for a mil-lion more testing kits.

In the time of Covid-19,it is important to bear inmind that there can beformal and informal bar-

riers which impact sup-ply chains.

“Not every nation pro-duces the medical sup-plies needed to tacklethe coronavirus. Thosethat do can still faceshortages as health caresystems come underpressure,” pointed outGlobal Trade Alert,which monitors protec-tionism.

“Worldwide, there are25 import or exportrestrictions on medicaltesting kits as of now.Nineteen relate to tariffincreases,” says SimonEvenett, professor ofeconomics at the Uni-versity of St Gallen,Switzerland, and Coordi-nator of Global TradeAlert.

Availability of testingkits is just one elementof pandemic prepared-ness.

“Community spreadwould involve olderpatients who are at high-er risk. This wouldincrease the demand forintensive care, includ-ing ventilators. Theexperience of Hubei andLombardy regions pro-vide an indication of thenumber of intensivecare beds needed: rough-ly 10 per cent of the totalnumbers infected.Creating the facilitiestake time. The govern-ment may need to identi-fy buildings, procureoxygen cylinders,masks, cannulas andventilators and recruitpersonnel immediate-ly,” points out RajeevSadanandan, formerKerala health secretaryand currently CEO ofthe Tata Trust-fundedHealth SystemsTransformation Plat-form (HSTP), in a recentarticle for the ObserverResearch Foundation.

“This may at worst bea wasted effort. But ifsupport is needed, andnot provided, it couldlead to avoidable deaths,loss of morale of healthworkers and anger inthe community,” addsMr Sadanandan.

These are wise wordsfrom a man who workedclosely with Keralahealth minister Shailajaat the time of the Nipahoutbreak. The worldapplauded Kerala for theway it handled Nipah.

The writer focuses ondevelopment issues in

India and emergingeconomies. She can be

reached atpatralekha.chatterjee

@gmail.com

India has toimprove its public

health facilitiesdrastically so that

people are not terrified by

the idea of being inisolation wards in government

quarantine facilities

YES TO RELIEFIT IS HEARTENING that the curtainhas finally come down on themoratorium imposed on the troubledlender, Yes Bank. In a significantrelief to depositors, the bank'sadministrator, Prashant Kumar,remarked that there is absolutely noissue on the liquidity front and all theATMs and branches are brimmingwith cash. That there were moreinflows than outflows in the last fourdays must also ease concerns. Withdomestic investors led by SBI, ICICIand HDFC pumping in `10,000 croresand the bank slowly limping back tonormal, it is no surprise that thestocks zoomed 58 per cent on Tuesdayamid the falling market.

N.J. Ravi ChanderBengaluru

BOLSTER INFRAIN A CORONA scare that sees thedismantling of the boundariesbetween the ordinary and extraordi-nary, and the living and dead, thevisionary Ayushman Bharat is aboon for the masses and a sureshotway to freedom from the catastroph-ic killer. Now is the right time for thegovernment to give full support toAyushman Bharat and allocate morefunds to it as well as to the health sec-tor so that medical services becomemore accessible to the masses includ-ing those living in rural areas. India'shealth coverage and penetration ofthe health infrastructure in villagesis abysmal and the governmentinvests only about 1.15 per cent ofGDP in healthcare.

N.K. BakshiVadodara

NAMASTE INDIAIN THE AGE of pandemics and thenovel coronavirus, even if you are fit,better not be carriers. As the worldgrapples with the rapidly growingcoronavirus crisis, namaste, the tra-ditionally Indian way of greetingpeople, is making inroads globally.Handshakes are out. This could beIndia's crucial contribution to thefight against coronavirus.

Vinod C. DixitAhmedabad

LETTERS

LALJI’S TELLMadhya Pradesh gover-nor Lalji Tandon seemsto have exceeded hisauthority by acting likea right-wing ideologueby praising AssemblySpeaker N.P. Prajapati inthe early hours ofWednesday for accept-ing the resignations ofsix Congress ministerssince it's not the gover-nor's business what theSpeaker does with theresignation letters.

S.S. PaulChakdaha, West Bengal

Every Monday the best letter ofthe week wins `500. Email:

[email protected].

Subhani

Patralekha Chatterjee

Dev 360

Japan, a country proneto earthquakes,tsunamis andtyphoons, is alsoknown for its capacity

to use advanced measures tocounter disasters effectively.But the present coronavirusepidemic has undoubtedly cre-ated one of the most seriouschallenges to the Japanesegovernment under PrimeMinister Shinzo Abe.

The coronavirus could nothave hit Japan at a more inap-propriate time. Indeed, Mr Abewas expecting rosy days in2020 for two reasons. First, itwas he who took the initiativeto host the Summer Olympicsin Tokyo during July/Augustthis year and he went all out tomake it one of the most spec-tacular events of the decade.Already, the Japanese govern-ment is reported to have spenta whopping $26 billion on thepreparations of the games. MrAbe believed that if the 1964Tokyo Olympics had heraldedthe advent of a new Japan onthe Asian scene, the 2020 megaevent would demonstrateJapan’s pre-eminence as aneconomic and technologicalgiant striving to promotepeace and harmony in theworld. Though the Olympicsare scheduled to be held onlyfrom the last week of July, thecoronavirus has already cast ashadow of doubt on the upcom-ing event. Many people haveraised the question onwhether it would be wise orpractical to go ahead with thegames when thousands ofJapanese and foreigners areexpected to gather in Tokyo.The key question they raise is:Can normalcy be restored andthe virus contained in timebefore the commencement ofthe event?

Second, the long-anticipatedstate visit to Japan by ChinesePresident Xi Jinping in April

has already been postponedand no fresh dates for his visithave been announced so far.Sino-Japanese relations haveshown strong signs ofimprovement in recentmonths. No Chinese Presidenthas made a state visit to Japansince 2008, and in that sense,Mr Xi’s visit would have beena significant landmark in theirbilateral engagements. BothMr Abe and Mr Xi were expect-ed to redefine their bilateralrelations in the light of the pre-sent favourable conditions andproject a new vision of theirpartnership for the comingyears. But considering therapidly spreading coron-avirus, both leaders decided topostpone Mr Xi’s visit. Thecoronavirus has definitelydeprived the two countries, atleast for the time being, of agreat opportunity to define thedawn of a new era.

At present, recording a totalof more than 1,000 coronaviruscases, Japan ranks fifth amongthe most affected countrieslike China, Italy, South Koreaand Iran. The number of casesin Japan includes 706 peopleaboard the cruise shipDiamond Princess which wasquarantined at Yokohamaport. The epidemic has so farclaimed 12 lives, six of whomwere connected with thecruise ship. According toreports, 27 out of the total of 47prefectures have reportedabout the impact of the virus.Hokkaido accounts for thehighest number of cases andthe prefecture has declared astate of emergency. Other pre-fectures that have reportedmore than 30 cases are Tokyo,Kanagawa and Aiichi.

Many believe that when theepidemic started in January2020, Mr Abe appeared to berather slow in reacting to it.But in February, the situationbecame quite serious with the

quarantining of the cruiseship Diamond Princess inYokohama port and the virussoon spread among 3,700 crewmembers and passengers.Japan was caught unawaresand not fully equipped to tack-le the problem. There werereports of the absence of test-ing equipment and shortagesof masks and toilet papers.Many believed that Mr Abewas too preoccupied withpreparations for President Xi’svisit to Japan to give adequateattention to the coronavirusissue.

There was a realisation inJapan that its lack of responseto the coronavirus stemmedfrom two reasons. First, whileJapan has the capacity andexpertise to respond effective-ly to natural disasters, thesame cannot be said about itsmeasures to counter thespread of infectious diseases.Having failed to undertakeproactive measures in the ini-tial stage, Mr Abe has nowtaken some strong steps. Forinstance, he ordered the clo-sure of all schools until the endof March. He also enforcedsevere restrictions on theentry of thousands of Chineseand Korean travellers. Visasissued to 2.8 million Chineseand 17,000 South Koreans havebeen suspended. Chinese and

Korean visitors will be askedto stay in separate and desig-nated facilities like hotels.Entertainment and amuse-ment centres and theme parkshave closed down and peoplehave refrained from going tohotels for family parties.Sports and music programmeshave been cancelled. But thesemeasures also have had astrong negative impact on theeconomy. For instance, thenon-entry of thousands ofChinese and Korean touristsin particular have seriouslyhurt the tourist industry.Tourists from China andSouth Korea accounted fornearly 50 per cent of all trav-ellers to Japan in 2019.

Second, there is a strong real-isation in Japan that the exist-ing laws dealing with infec-tious diseases are not adequateto fight Covid-19, which is dif-ferent from the earlier knowninfectious viruses. The ShinzoAbe government is now find-ing it necessary to enact a newlaw. If the law is enacted, itwill give Mr Abe the power toenforce a state of emergency incertain areas in the country inorder to cope with the rapidlyspreading coronavirus thatcould have a devastatingimpact on the people. Such adeclaration of emergencywould also authorise prefec-tural governors to regulatepeople’s activities. A bill torevise the existing laws hasalready been tabled before theJapanese Diet. As expected,some parties have objected tothe bill on the grounds that itwould violate people’s rightsand privacy. With a view tostrike a compromise, Mr Abehas tried to mould a consensuson the issue by meeting withfive major Opposition politicalparties. But Mr Abe appears tohave almost succeeded in con-

vincing his rivals on the needfor revising the existing laws.

Finally, the present coron-avirus crisis has highlightedtwo major inadequacies in theJapanese system in fightingthe spread of infectious dis-eases. The first one relates tofinancial limitations. In thecurrent parliamentary debateson the issue, many lawmakersstressed the need for substan-tially increasing the financialand personnel strength of theNational Institute of InfectiousDiseases (NIID) on the lines ofthe US Centre for DiseaseControl and Prevention (CDC).It is reported that the draftbudget allocated for NIID forthe fiscal 2020 is only 6.4 bil-lion yen, and its total staff is348. On the contrary, in the US,the CDC is operating with abudget 200 times larger and astaff 40 times bigger.

The second one relates to theabsence of a centralised con-trolling agency with a swiftresponse system. Until now,the Cabinet Secretariat hasacted as the controlling agencytasked with spearheadingmeasures to stop the spread ofinfection. But it has spe-cialised in crisis managementat times of large disasters likeearthquakes, hijackings, ter-rorist bombings and missilethreats. It lacks experience inundertaking counter-mea-sures to control infections. Inthe current session of theJapanese Diet, there weredemands that “We need tohave a commanding organisa-tion which specialises in infec-tion control like the AmericanCentre for Disease Control andPrevention”.

The writer is a distinguishedfellow at the Observer Research Foundation,

New Delhi

Thirty-plus Nishant was so shythat, after ten years ofcourtship, his fiancée Nishafelt he was never going to pro-

pose to her; so, she’d have to do theneedful herself. So, sitting by theseashore, Nisha asked, “Nishant, willyou marry me?” Pin-drop silence.Then, Nishant muttered, “yes”.Longer silence. Overjoyed, Nishacried, “Darling, Nishant! Say some-thing! Why don’t you say something?”Nishant whispered, “Nisha, I’m afraidI’ve said too much already!”

Y-e-s! Three-letters. Howoften have you said “Yes”to your truest self? To oth-ers? To life? To God?Saying “Yes” to bankersand powerbrokers is easysince you’ll reap richreturns; though, some-times, you might go broke.But, saying “Yes” andbanking on God is a leap of faith, pactof love, bond of hope; for, one neverknows what a “Yes” to God will reap.

Today, Christians celebrate the feastof Saint Joseph — just man, silentworker, steadfast protector — alsoremembered on May 1, InternationalWorkers’ Day. Joseph of Nazareth —foster-father of Jesus and legal spouseof Mary — was a carpenter. The poor“Holy Family” of Jesus, Mary andJoseph laboured through life’s upsand downs with many “Yeses” to God.

The Bible doesn’t record even a sin-gle word Joseph uttered; yet, his silent

“Yes” to God, Mary andJesus, spoke volumes.Through an angelicapparition he was firstadvised to accept pregnantvirgin, Mary or Miriam —who Christians andMuslims believe con-ceived through the powerof God’s spirit — as his

wife. Next, at Jesus’ birth in the mosttrying of times, he was told to flee toEgypt with Mary and Jesus, to escapethe murderous designs of King Herod.He said “Yes”.

From Egypt, Joseph is told to returnto Nazareth. The Bible says that heunfailingly protects his family andpromotes Jesus’ growth “in wisdom,in stature, and in favour with God andother people.” Heroically, throughtoils, trials and travels he banks onGod, becoming patron-saint of par-ents, workers and protectors.

In a world wherein we often say

“No” to newness, to change, to loveand serve selflessly, why don’t we say“Yes” more frequently? Here, we’renot referring to yes-men whose yesesare loaded with self-interest, but ofyeses that make living and lovinglovelier. Saying “Yes” involves uncer-tainties and risks. It makes one ven-ture forth from one’s family andeverything familiar to the frontiers offaith, where one says “Yes”, investingin others and banking on God.

Tomorrow, we celebrate“International Day of Happiness”with the theme “Happier Together”.Happiness comes not from isolationbut from inclusion, openness to oth-ers, and faith in some absolute largerthan ourselves. Despite virus vitia-tion and Yes Bank bankruptcy, let’ssay, together, “Yes! Tathastu!”

Francis Gonsalves is a professor of theology. He can be contacted at

[email protected]

Inadequacies in fighting coronavirusraise questions on Tokyo Olympics

Saying ‘Yes’ and banking on God is a leap of faith

Coronavirus: Now is avulnerable time withBoris, Trump at helm

Amid the multifariousknown unknowns ofthe coronavirus epi-demic, it is fascinat-

ing to see how many mediaoutlets in the West are morefocused on the tumblingstock markets than on thehuman toll.

Suddenly, socialism by anyother name is the flavour ofthe day, as governments areimportuned to rescue floun-dering capitalist enterprises.And it doesn’t end there. Incertain particularly shame-less ideological circles, thereare arguments being madefor exploiting the crisis as anopportunity to reinforceneoliberal economic struc-tures with “reforms” relatingto company tax cuts, labourmarket “flexibility”, andeven pension schemes.

That, we are unreliablyinformed, is the way theworld will rapidly return to a“growth path” after the loom-ing global recession. Thestarkly exposed inadequaciesof privatised healthcare arean unlikely topic in suchforums, where Mammon isthe star, sustained by a sup-porting cast not of humanbeings but “clients” and“consumers”. And the veryidea of extending corporatesocialism to the rest ofhumanity is dismissed as arecipe for the end of theworld as we know it. Which,if you think about it, mightnot be such a bad outcome.

Since last week, Westerncentral banks from the US tothe EU, Britain and Australiahave been deploying the toolsat their disposal to stave off amarket meltdown — thus farto little effect. The keyindices remain in free fall asCovid-19 keeps spreading,with the epicentre shiftingfrom Asia to Europe.

Like so many other aspectsof the highly infectious dis-ease, where it will spreadnext remains uncertain. Thecoronavirus thus far hasn’treached deep into Africa.Asia, of course, is a differentstory.

The rate of infection hasbeen sharply declining inChina, wherefrom Covid-19apparently sprang. SouthKorea, the next worst-hitnation, has been remarkablysuccessful in keeping thefatality rate extremely low.Adhering to advice from theWHO has also paid off forHong Kong, Taiwan andSingapore.

Iran has been a differentstory altogether, with analarming rate of fatalities rel-ative to the number of infec-tions, although it’s widelyassumed that the actual rateof infections is considerablyhigher than the reported fig-ures. The initial insoucianceof the regime in Tehran isone factor in the unfoldingtragedy, but Western — pri-marily American — sanc-tions are also taking a toll,not least by limiting thenation’s access to medicalsupplies.

India and Pakistan have

thus far got off pretty lightly,but there are no grounds forcomplacency. It’s worthrecalling that during the so-called Spanish flu pandemicthat provided a horrific codato the depredations of theFirst World War a little morethan 100 years ago, westernIndia (a united Britishcolony at the time) accountedfor up to 60 per cent of an esti-mated global death toll of atleast 50 million.

The mortality rate of theSpanish flu has commonlybeen compared in recentweeks with that of the novelcoronavirus currently con-fronting us, boiled down to afigure of 2.5 per cent. But itdoesn’t require a particular-ly mathematical mind to fig-ure out that back in 1918, 50million represented 2.5 percent of the world’s popula-tion, rather than the one-third of humanity that isbelieved to have been infect-ed.

At present, the level of fatal-ities anyhow seems to varywidely from one country toanother, with Iran faringmuch worse than SouthKorea, for instance, and Italyemerging as something of anoutlier in Europe.Amazingly, Italy appears tohave been receiving moreassistance from China andCuba than from the EU.Meanwhile, Jack Ma, theentrepreneur behind Alibabaand the richest man in Asia,has begun donating test kitsto the US as well as otherWestern countries.

It is particularly unfortu-nate that during a crisis suchas this, a couple of the mostvulnerable countries boastleaders such as DonaldTrump and Boris Johnson.Given its National HealthService, Britain is not asbadly off as the US, where apublic health system is con-spicuous by its absence.

A Harvard epidemiologistrecently commented that heand his colleagues initiallytreated the Johnson govern-ment’s faith in “herd immu-nity” — the hope that ifenough people are exposed tothe virus, they will in timedevelop immunity to it — asa spot of British satire. Theidea of daily media briefingsby the British PrimeMinister is also not particu-larly reassuring. But it’s nomatch for Trump’s rapid evo-lution from “who cares?” to“everything is under con-trol”, when it clearly isn’t,with the US President him-self this week advising stategovernors to fend for them-selves in obtaining test kits.

But then, he presides over acountry whose denizensreportedly have been rush-ing out to stock up on assaultweapons. Amid all the self-isolation, mandatory quaran-tining and social distancing,panic-buying toilet rollswould seem to be the saferoption.

By arrangement with Dawn

Shinzo Abe believedthat if the 1964 TokyoOlympics had heraldedthe advent of a newJapan on the Asianscene, the 2020 mega event would demonstrate Japan’spre-eminence as an economic and technological giant

Mahir Ali

FrancisGonsalves

OPED pg 7THE ASIAN AGE | THURSDAY | 19 MARCH 2020 | NEW DELHI

K.V. Kesavan

■ SC pulling up telcos, recession fears worsen sentiments

Sensex cracks below 29000as panic, carnage continue

London, March 18:Benchmark WTI oil onWednesday slumped 12per cent to the lowest levelsince 2002, at under $24per barrel, as the coron-avirus slashes globaldemand for crude.

WTI slid to $23.60 perbarrel, while Brent NorthSea oil touched a 2003trough at $26.65 a barrel.This is the third straightday of losses for crude oilthis week.

Investment banks andconsultancies have beenmaking heavy cuts to theirdemand forecasts as agrowing number of theworld’s largest cities andeconomies restrict move-ment.

“The oil demand col-lapse from the spreadingcoronavirus looks increas-ingly sharp,” GoldmanSachs said in a note, fore-casting a fall in Brentprices to as low as $20 inthe second quarter, a levelnot seen since early 2002.

The bank expects ademand contraction of 8million barrels per day(bpd) by late March and anannual decline in 2020 of1.1 million bpd, which itsaid would be the biggeston record.

Rystad Energy has goneeven further, projecting ayear-on-year decline indemand of 2.8 million bpd,or 2.8 per cent, this year.

“To put the number intocontext, last week we pro-jected a decrease of just600,000 barrels,” Rystadsaid.

In addition to imposingsocial restrictions notseen since World War Two,the world’s richest nationsprepared to unleash tril-lions of dollars of spend-ing to reduce the falloutfrom the coronavirus.

The impact on demand isstarting to show in officialstatistics, with Japan’strade bureau saying onWednesday that crudeimports into the world’sthird-biggest economy inFebruary were down 9 per

cent from a year earlier.Virgin Australia became

the latest airline to shut itsinternational networkwith the suspension of alloverseas flights, whileAustralian Prime Minis-ter Scott Morrison warn-ed that the situation couldlast six months or more.

Elsewhere, Iraq’s oilminister pleaded for anemergency meetingbetween members of theOrganization of the Petro-leum Exporting Countries(Opec) and non-Opec pro-ducers to discuss immedi-ate action to support themarket.

A price war betweenOpec leader Saudi Arabiaand Russia after the col-lapse of talks on coordi-nated output cuts isincreasing pressure on themarket.

The Kremlin onWednesday said thatRussia would like to seethe oil price higher thancurrent levels.

Saudi Arabia’s energyministry, however, said ithad directed national oilcompany Aramco to con-tinue to supply crude oil ata record high 12.3 millionbpd over the comingmonths. —Agencies

Printed & Published by T Venkateswarlu on behalf of DeccanChronicle Holdings Limited. Printed atBFL Infotech Ltd, C-9 Sector 3, Noida-201301. Published at 219, N D Tiwari

Bhawan, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg,New Delhi-110002.

Editor: T.Venkatram Reddy, RNIRegistration number 30074/09, Air sur-

charge Re 1. © All rights reserved.Reproduction in whole or in part with-out written permission of The Editor,Financial Chronicle ® is prohibited.

quickBITES

INDICATORS %Sensex 28,869.51 -5.59Nifty 50 8,468.80 -5.56S&P 500* 2,390.98 -5.46Dollar (`) 74.26 -0.006Pound Sterling (`) 88.42 1.74Euro (`) 81.49 0.41Gold (10gm)* (`) 40,241▼311 0.77Brent crude ($/bbl)* 26.21 -8.77IN 10-Yr bond yield 6.296 0.492US 10-Yr T-bill yield* 1.060 6.426

* As of 9:30 pm IST

NCLT gives 90days more forJet Air resolutionNational Company Law Tribunalallowed 90 days' extension forthe corporate insolvency reso-lution process of Jet Airways.Jet’s resolution professionalhad last week filed an applica-tion in the NCLT seeking 90days' extension for the insol-vency process of the groundedairline after it failed to attractany bidder. The committee ofcreditors had on February 18set a new deadline of March 10for submission of bids.

Oyo parent gets$807 mn fromcurrent investors

Oravel Stays, the parent compa-ny of Oyo, has received $807million (around Rs 6,000 crore)from existing backer Soft VisionFund and Ritesh Agarwal-led RAHospitality Holdings. InOctober, Oyo had said that itwill raise $1.5 bn for expansion inthe US and strengtheningEurope operations. The firmallotted 15,325 Series F compul-sorily convertible cumulativepreference shares to the twoentities, at $52,643.22 per share

BMW to shutdown EuropeanfactoriesGerman carmaker BMW said itwould close European andSouth African factoriesaccounting for half its outputfor a month, matching other cargiants stricken by coronaviruscontainment measures. It alsowarned that profits this yearwould be significantly lower asa result of the crisis. BMW'sfactories around Europe com-bined with the South Africaplant accounted for half the2.56 million cars it built in 2019.

Bajaj Financereappoints Jain as MDBajaj Finance said its board hasreappointed Rajeev Jain asmanaging director for a furtherperiod of five years with effectfrom April 1, 2020, the compa-ny said in a regulatory filing.Jain is the managing director ofour company since April 1,2015. He has more than 26years of experience in the con-sumer lending industry. He wasearlier with CountrywideConsumer Financial Services,ANZ Grindlays Bank and Amex.

pg 8THURSDAY | 19 MARCH 2020 | NEW DELHI

PARMOD KUMARwith agency inputsNEW DELHI, MARCH 18

The Supreme Court onWednesday pulled up thetelecom service providers(TSPs) for undertaking theself-assessment, orreassessment, of theadjusted gross revenue(AGR) dues decided by itsOctober 24, 2019 judgmentand took exception to arti-cles appearing in the news-papers relating to AGRconcealing the truth.

In a warning to the topechelons of the TSPs, abench headed by JusticeArun Mishra, and com-prising Justices AbdulNazeer and M.R.Shah, saidall the managing directorsof telecom serviceproviders would be madepersonally responsibleand hauled up for con-tempt if any such write-upconcealing truth appearedin future.

Telling in an unequivo-cal terms that amountdecided by its October 24judgment was final, thecourt described as "fraud"the TSPs carrying out self-assessment of theirrespective AGR dues.

"We will be party tofraud if we allow self-assessment of AGR duesby telecom companies,"the court said, making itclear that it cannot permitencroachment of its pow-ers by allowing self-

assessment by TSPs.Expressing its displeas-

ure over the way itsOctober 24 order, direct-ing TSPs to pay outstand-ing AGR dues of Rs. 92,000crore, was sought to bescuttled, the courtdeferred, by two weeks,hearing on the Centre'srescue plan to give serviceproviders a window of 20years to pay AGR dues inannual installments cou-pled with interest.

"The time-frame of 20years is unreasonable. Thetelecom companies have toclear all dues mentionedin the judgment," the courtsaid noting that till otherday, when the matter wasargued before it leading toOctober 24 judgment, theCentre had "fought toothand nail for levying inter-ests and penalties."

The desk-officer of thedepartment of telecom-munications (DoT) wasagain in trouble as thecourt said it would sum-

mon the secretary, DoTand desk officer for per-mitting the TSPs to carryout self-assessment oftheir respective AGRdues.

In the last hearing of thematter DoT's desk-officerinvited the wrath of thetop court for issuing acommunication onJanuary 23, that had saidthat no coercive action betaken against the serviceproviders for not comply-ing with the court'sOctober 24 order.

A Bloomberg report saidthe ruling could sendVodafone Idea into bank-ruptcy. It now leaves fewoptions for Vodafone Idea,which owes $4 billion -- ofwhich the carrier has paidabout $930 million. It alsocomes as a disappointmentto rival Bharti Airtel, theother survivor of a brutalprice war sparked by theentry of Reliance JioInfocomm in 2016.

While Bharti Airtel hasraised funds to meet thepayment demand by wayof rights issue of sharesand bond sales, VodafoneIdea has pinned its hopeson a relief package. UK-based Vodafone, whichowns about 45 per cent ofthe local venture, has sig-nalled its reluctance toplow any more money.

Shares of Vodafone Ideaplunged 35 per cent andBharti Airtel fell over 6 percent.

SC lashes out at telcosfor self-assessing dues

RAVI RANJAN PRASADMUMBAI, MARCH 18

Global recession fears,fresh coronavirus casesand the Supreme Courtcoming hard on telecomcompanies led to morepanic selling in the equitymarket on Wednesday.Benchmark indicesSensex and Nifty-50 sankanother 5.5 per cent tofresh three-year lows, inline with the massive sell-ing witnessed in the Asia-Pacific and Europeregions.

Confirmed coronaviruscases in the country roseto 151, and as the diseasewas still in the secondstage, the next two weekswere crucial in preventingit from spreading to thecommunity level, medicalexperts said. Globally, theconfirmed cases of coron-avirus topped 2-lakh mark,with 1 lakh more casesadded after March 6, injust 12 days.

The worst affected coun-tries included China(81,000), Italy (31,000) Iran(16,000), Spain (11,000),Germany (9,000), SouthKorea (8,000) and US(5,000).

The Supreme Court saidthat the self-assessment ofadjusted gross revenue

(AGR) dues was in viola-tion of its October 24 orderand that all dues must bepaid.

After the apex courtlashed telecom companies,there was massive sellingin blue-chips, particularlybanks having exposure tothe telecom sector and thetelecom stocks that mayget hit by court's stance.

It was the worst day forindex heavy weights, ledby IndusInd Bank (-23.90per cent), HDFC Bank (-9.92 per cent), KotakMahindra Bank (-11.23 percent), HDFC (-7.47 percent), Bajaj Finance (-11.11per cent) and HeroMotocorp (-7.86 per cent),on the BSE.

Reliance Industries alsofell 3.97 per cent whileICICI Bank lost another2.96 per cent after massive8.92 per cent fall in the pre-vious session.

The Sensex closed 5.59per cent, or 1,709.58 points,down at 28,869.51 while theNifty-50 fell 498.25 points,or 5.56 per cent, to 8,468.80.Investors lost another Rs5.98 lakh crore as BSE'smarket capitalisation fellto Rs 1,13,53,329.30 crore asagainst Rs 1,19,52,066.11crore crore on Tuesday.

Telecom stocks that fellsharply included BhartiAirtel (-6.14 per cent),Bharti Infratel (-22.62 percent) and Vodafone Idea (-34.85 per cent).

The only saving gracewas big value buying seenin PSU stocks in late after-noon trade. The PSU stockthat gained includedONGC (9.83 per cent),Punjab National Bank(6.52 per cent) and Bank ofIndia (2.37 per cent) whileSBI closed flat at Rs 214.65,down just 0.12 per cent.

Arun Kumar, marketstrategist, RelianceSecurities, said, "The Nifty50 hit a new three-year lowby surpassing last Friday'slow of 8,556. Though, theindex is highly oversold onnear-term basis, markettechnical displays incre-mental pain. The next sig-nificant support fallsaround Nifty-50's histori-cal support in the zone of7,890 - 8,000."

Analyst said volatilityindex India VIX, which hit12 year high of 64.57 onWednesday, was still indi-cating wild market move-ments in the near futureand no predictable rangefor the benchmarks. SRanganathan, head ofresearch at LKPSecurities, said, ''What wewitnessed today in ourmarkets was truly unnerv-ing to every investor asour market cap to GDP vir-tually touched 2008 globalfinancial crisis lows."

SANGEETHA GCHENNAI, MARCH 18

Housing finance compa-nies (HFCs) may see arecovery in the next finan-cial year. After a dismal 2per cent loan growth thisfiscal, beleaguered HFCsare expected to clock dou-ble-digit growth next year,as they increasingly tapthe securitisation marketand co-lending opportuni-ties.

The spurt in loan growthnext year will depend onhow successfully the play-ers tap into co-lendingopportunities with banksand loan securitisation,while reducing reliance onshort-term borrowings.

Funding impairment anda slowdown in housingsales had skewed demandfor mortgage loans in thepast 18 months. In theaftermath of IL&FSdefault, the funding situa-tion has remained fairlygrim for housing finan-ciers, impacting their loanbook growth.

"We expect growth inHFCs to rebound to double-

digit figures in fiscal 2021to 10-12 per cent after a dif-ficult fiscal 2020, whereinloan growth is estimated tobe as low as 2 per cent,"says Brickwork Ratings.

However, asset qualityand profitability willremain under pressure asthe borrowing cost andcredit costs rise on theback of increased delin-quencies in the developerloan and loan against prop-erty portfolios.

With the fall in tradition-al borrowing routes, HFCshave begun to obtain alarge portion of their fund-ing through the securitisa-tion route. "We have seen

an unprecedented rise inloan securitisation byHFCs from the second halfof fiscal 2019 and expectthe quantum of securitisedpools outstanding to crossRs 2 lakh crore mark by theend of March 2020. Thisalong with governmentmeasures, such as partialcredit guarantee scheme, isexpected to help improveliquidity and enable HFCsto better manage theirasset-liability profile,"Rajat Bahl, chief ratingsofficer, BWR, said.

Icra too expects that theparticipation of HFCs willgrow the securitisationmarket. "We expect that thesize of the securitisationmarket would cross Rs. 2lakh crore for FY2020…The liquidity challengesbeing faced by the NBFCsand HFCs coupled with apush by the governmentthrough the extension ofits partial credit guaranteescheme...would supportthe securitisation market,"said Abhishek Dafria, vicepresident and head-struc-tured finance ratings atIcra.

MICHELLE JAMRISKOMARCH 18

King Dollar is creating anew headache for virus-battered economies global-ly, with emerging marketsespecially vulnerable asthey try to cope with col-lapsing currencies andplunging demand.

Investors are fleeingemerging markets inrecord numbers and pilinginto the safe-haven green-back, with two emergencyinterest-rate cuts thismonth by the FederalReserve doing nothing todiminish the dollar'sappeal.

With the dollar moreintegrated into the worldeconomy than ever before,its gains are an addedstress for businesses andgovernments as they bracefor soaring costs on theirdollar debt. The dilemmafor emerging market cen-tral banks is that as theyslash interest rates to sup-port growth, they riskdestabilising their curren-

cies as well if they cut toomuch.

"The surge in the dollaris another blow to emerg-ing markets," said MitulKotecha, senior emergingmarkets strategist at TDSecurities in Singapore."The demand for the dollarhas outweighed any hit tothe US currency fromsharply lower Fed rates.EM assets will continue to

struggle as investors steerclear of relatively riskyassets and maintain a biasfor safe havens."

Turkey's central bankwas the latest emergingmarket to make an emer-gency rate cut. SouthKorea, Chile, Vietnam, SriLanka and Pakistanalready eased this weekfollowing the Fed's actionon Sunday, and South

Africa, Indonesia andBrazil are expected toreduce their key rates incoming days.

New research from theBank for InternationalSettlements shows thatsince the global financialcrisis, unexpected dollarappreciation depressesworld trade growth. A rea-son for this could be atightening in financialconditions as dollar lend-ing to emerging marketsslows, according to theresearch paper.

Outflows from emergingmarkets are already atrecord levels, reaching $30billion in 45 days amid thevirus outbreak, accordingto the Institute ofInternational Finance. Allmajor emerging-marketcurrencies tracked byBloomberg have weakenedagainst the dollar sinceJanuary 20—the onset ofCovid-19 concerns inAsia—with the Russianruble and Mexican pesodropping almost 20 percent. —Bloomberg

London, March 18:Sterling tanked onWednesday against thedollar, hitting its lowestlevel since 1985 asinvestors snapped up thesafe haven US currencyin markets panicked bythe coronavirus out-break. The pound slidabout 1.9 per cent to$1.1828, according toBloomberg data. It later

stood at $1.1861."Sterlinghas completed one of itssteepest declines in mem-ory by hitting its weakestlevel since 1985, exclud-ing... the brief dive of theOctober 2016 flash crash,"said Markets.com analystNeil Wilson. "This seemsto be an offloading ofrisky-ish pounds infavour of safer dollars."

—AFP

Surging US dollar is next bigheadache for world economy

POUND NOSEDIVES AGAINSTDOLLAR TO 1985 LOW

Recovery in HFC loangrowth seen in FY21

New Delhi, March 18:The government is con-sidering rate modera-tion for small savingsschemes in the upcom-ing quarter, a develop-ment that could lead tospeedier transmission ofmonetary policy ratecuts, sources said.

During the currentquarter, the governmentrefrained from cuttinginterest rates on smallsavings schemes, suchas Public ProvidentFund and NationalSavings Certificatedespite moderatingbank deposit rates.

Currently, there is adifference of nearly 100basis points betweendeposit rate of banksand small savings ratefor one-year maturity.

Rates on small savingsschemes are revised onquarterly basis.

On December 31, thegovernment kept inter-est rates for savingsschemes like PPF andNSC unchanged at 7.9per cent for the January-March quarter while therate for the Kisan VikasPatra maturing in 113months was kept at 7.6per cent. —PTI

Small savingsrates may becut in April


With online orders risingdue to fears and shutdowns over the coron-avirus pandemic, e-com-merce companies are hir-ing more temporary staffto meet the additionaldemand for door-stepdelivery.

BigBasket usuallyincreases its headcount by2 to 3 per cent everymonth. However, this timethere has been a surge of 5to 10 per cent. The e-groceris hiring around 2,000 peo-ple in March.

"We have witnessed 100per cent increase indemand. Usually thegrowth in demand wouldbe 5 per cent over the pre-vious month. But inMarch, the demand hasgrown by 10 to 15 per centover February. Thisrequires additional handsfor delivery as well aswarehouse management.The stock levels also havebeen increased to ensureavailability,' said AbhinayChoudhari, co-founder ofBigBasket.com.

Grofers too is increasingits headcount to deliverproducts as it has alsoseen a similar growth in

demand for products."Over the last couple ofdays, we have seen cus-tomers buying items onour platform in largequantities across cities aswell as categories.Mumbai, Bangalore, Puneand Ahmedabad have seena higher surge with nearly80 per cent growth fol-lowed by Delhi NCR andHyderabad, at a 60 per centspike in business. We haveseen a rise in the numberof orders by 45 per cent,"the company said.

Big e-commerce plat-forms like Amazon andFlipkart are also steppingup hiring to meet higherdemand. Though AmazonIndia has not revealed itshiring plans yet, it hasapproached flexi staffingcompanies seeking morehands.

Rituparna Chakraborty,president, Indian Staffing

Federation, said, "The e-commerce companies likeAmazon and Flipkart havereached out to us and indi-cated that they want peo-ple ahead of their peakseason. Usually the peakseason hiring starts byJune-July for Augustbefore the festive season.This time they haveapproached us much earli-er due to the unprecedent-ed demand."

In the US, Amazon isopening 1,00,000 new fulland part-time positionsacross the fulfillment cen-tres and delivery networkto meet the surge indemand.

"Amazon and our net-work of partners are help-ing communities aroundthe world in a way thatvery few can-deliveringcritical supplies directlyto the doorsteps of peoplewho need them. Getting apriority item to yourdoorstep is vital as com-munities practice social-distancing, particularlyfor the elderly and otherswith underlying healthissues. We are seeing a sig-nificant increase indemand, which means ourlabour needs are unprece-dented for this time ofyear," Amazon Inc said inits blog.

E-com firms step up temp hiringto meet coronavirus-led demand

Oil projected to touch$20/bbl next quarter

Shipping sector gets adowngrade

from Moody’s

RestructuringHSBC remains

top priority fornew CEO

pg 9THURSDAY | 19 MARCH 2020 | NEW DELHI

Mumbai, March 18: In thewake of coronavirus pan-demic and deterioratingglobal economic outlook,ratings agency Moody’shas changed its forecast forthe shipping industry tonegative for the next 12-18months from stable.

“We have changed ouroutlook for the global ship-ping industry to negativefrom stable. This outlookreflects our expectationsfor the fundamental busi-ness conditions in theindustry over the next 12 to18 months,” the agencysaid in a statement.

According to Moody’s,the EBITDA of shippingcompanies will decline in2020 amid sharply reduceddemand for shipping serv-ices in the wake of thecoronavirus.

“This is because of theexpected impact of the out-break on Chinese manufac-turing output and demandfor coal and iron ore inChina, especially duringthe first half of 2020, aswell as related economicdisruption. As a result, wehave changed the outlookfor the global shippingindustry to negative fromstable,” it said.

Moody’s expects theEBITDA of rated shippingcompanies to decline byaround 6-10 per cent in 2020compared with EBITDAgrowth of almost 40 percent in 2019. — PTI

New Delhi, March 18: TheUS Food and DrugAdministration (USFDA)has issued a warning letterto drug major Cipla for vio-lating current good manu-facturing practice normsat its Goa-based plant.

In a letter to company’sManaging Director andGlobal CEO Umang Vohra,the USFDA said inspectorsduring September 16-27,2019, had found significantdeviations from standardmanufacturing practices atCipla’s Goa (Verna) basedplant. “This warning lettersu-mmarises significantviolations of current goodmanufacturing practice(CGMP) regulations forfinished pharmaceuticalsbecause your methods,facilities, or controls formanufacturing, process-ing, packing, or holding donot conform to CGMP, yourdrug products are adulter-ated,” the USFDA said.

The significant violationsincluded company’s failure“to clean, maintain, and, asappropriate for the natureof the drug, sanitiseand/or sterilise equipmentand utensils at appropriateintervals to prevent mal-functions,” the regulatoradded. — PTI

London/Hong Kong,March 18: One of NoelQuinn’s first jobs as chiefexecutive of HSBC will beto review the radicalrevamp he unveiled lastmonth as interim boss, asenior source at the banksaid.

Quinn’s decisive move toslash costs proved instru-mental in securing him thetop spot at Europe’s largestlender but those plans,including the axing of35,000 jobs and shutteringof underperforming busi-nesses, may prove difficultto implement while theworld grapples with thefallout from the coron-avirus pandemic.

“You can’t fire a trader inEurope over the phonewhen he is either workingfrom home or taking careof a sick family member,” asecond HSBC source said.

HSBC will review thesocial, economic and politi-cal impact of the virus, thefirst source said, addingthat the bank could stilldecide to proceed with itsexisting plans. A spokes-man for HSBC declined tocomment. — Reuters


Gold prices have remainedquite volatile in the pastfew sessions as US dollargaining strength despitethe US Federal Reservebringing down the interestrate. The Covid-19 pandem-ic fears are forcinginvestors to keep cash inhand rather than investingin assets. Though the long-term prospects of the metalare bright, volatility willcontinue in the short-term.

On Wednesday, gold fell asmuch as 2.7 per cent asinvestors to dump mostassets for the safety ofcash.

Gold has fallen from itsrecent highs above $1,700per ounce to touch a recentlow of $1,450. In the Indianmarket, gold prices haveslid from around `45,000per 10 gm to `39,700. Thefall in the bullion marketwas a result of the equitymarket crash as the hedgefunds went on to book theirprofits in gold to cover mar-gin calls in equities.

“Hedge funds had to covertheir losses in equities andhence they were increas-ingly booking profits ingold, which had gone uparound 40 per cent in thepast one-and-half year,”

said Jateen Trivedi, seniorresearch analyst, commodi-ties and currencies, LKPSecurities.

However, gold shouldhave moved up after the USFederal Reserve loweredthe interest rates andannounced the bond buy-ing programme. Both arefactors that, in any normalscenario, would have sup-ported another rally ingold. But, gold hasremained highly volatile,moving in a wide rangebetween $1,460 and $1,530.The average daily move-ment in gold has signifi-cantly moved up in Marchcompared to what it was inFebruary.

“The pandemic scare ismaking investors hold onto cash rather than invest-ing it any asset class. Thissentiment has supportedUS dollar,’ said HimanshuGupta, vice president andhead of commodities and

currencies research, GlobeCapital.

The dollar index is at athree-year high of 101 lev-els. In the past one week, ithas gained significantlyfrom 95.30 to touch 101.“Dollar seems to be saferasset than gold, at least inthe short term,” he said.

While the volatility willcontinue in the short term,the fundamentals are sup-portive of gold in the medi-um to long-term. “Once theepidemic subsidies, we willstart hearing about theimpact of it on the globaleconomy in the comingquarters. This will seeinvestors flocking towardsgold,” said Gupta.

Goldman Sachs has low-ered the three-six monthgold forecast to $1,600, buthas retained the 12-monthforecast at $1,800 per ounce.In rupee terms, this cantake gold beyond `50,000levels.

Experts say metal price will remain volatile● Gold has fallenfrom its recent highsabove $1,700 perounce to touch arecent low of $1,450.In the Indian market,gold prices have slidfrom `45,000 per 10gm to `39,700.

Gold falls as investorsshift to safety of cash

New York gets deserted

A couple carrying grocery crosses 1st Avenue in Manhattan in New York City on Wednesday. The coronavirus outbreakhas transformed the United States virtually overnight from a place of boundless consumerism to one suddenly con-strained by nesting and social distancing. — AFP

Los Angeles/Portland,March 18: For years, TVexecutives have frettedthere is too much TV. Now,with the coronavirus loom-ing large, they are worriedthere might not be enough.

Because of the pandemic,streaming surged this pastweekend, according to WurlInc., a company that deliv-ers video and advertising toconnected TVs. The amo-unt of time people spentstreaming spiked by morethan 20 per cent worldwide,including more than 40 percent in Austria and Spain.

While streaming serviceshaven’t commented on anyincreases in traffic, resear-

chers are seeing moreactivity places like NetflixInc. and Twitch, the onlinegaming network owned byAmazon.com Inc. Installs ofthe Netflix app leaped 34per cent last week in Spainand 57 per cent in Italy,according to Sensor-Tower.Italy has the second-mostcoronavirus cases world-wide, after China.

“While video streaming isfar from the most importa-nt thing on the world agen-da, it is an industry thatindirectly will see a majorshift due to the crisis,” saidSean Doherty, Wurl’s chiefexecutive officer.

Driving that growth is the

collapse of many leisureand entertainment activi-ties because of the virus,from restaurants andmovie theaters to profes-sional sports and concerts.

Media companies havetorn up their normal strate-gies to satisfy growingdemand for programmingfrom people stuck at home.Universal Pictures, the stu-dio division of cable giantComcast Corp., will offerthree movies for rental athome before they leave the-aters, while Walt DisneyCo. released “Frozen 2” onits streaming servicesmonths ahead of schedule.

While viewing of live TV

is also on the rise thanks to24/7 coverage of the virusoutbreak and more peoplebeing stuck at home, pro-duction of most TV showsand movies has halted forthe foreseeable future, cre-ating a potential shortageof new programming.

Streaming services are ina good position becauseconsumers look to them fortheir libraries of titles ondemand — not a live feed —and they have alreadybanked programmes forrelease in the weeks ahead.

Traditional TV networksmust be on the air 24 hoursa day, and outlets such asCBS, Turner and ESPN

have scrambled to replacethe live sports that havegone on hiatus.

That’s opened the door tounconventional forms ofprogramming, from marblerolling to live in-home con-certs. Singer John Legendperformed from his homeTuesday, streaming live onInstagram for an audiencethat reached almost 100,000people.

One industry that mayface minimal disruptionfrom the pandemic is videogames, which participantshave long enjoyed andplayed without being in thesame place.

The audience at Twitch,

which lets viewers seegamers compete via livestr-eams, has increased 10 percent in the past few days,according to Doron Nir,CEO of Stream-Elements, aprovider of tools and serv-ices to the industry. AndYouTube Gaming is up 15per cent, he said. “Withmore stay-at-home manda-tes being issued around theworld and the entertain-ment industry finding newways to migrate their offer-ings to livestreaming plat-forms, we expect to see the-se numbers rise,” he said.

David Steinberg, who is 27and streams himself play-ing video games, saw an

influx of viewers in recentweeks as more people havebeen staying home.

“Now that sports are can-celed — NBA, PGA — theyare just out of stuff towatch,” he said. “I am aone-man army here in mybasement and I can stillcreate content. And with somany people looking online— especially on Facebook,where they check how istheir family is doing — it’sbeen good.”

An increase in viewerscould translate into morerevenue from advertisersor sponsors looking toreach that captive audi-ence. — Bloomberg

New York, March 18: Thefallout from the worst routin credit markets since theglobal financial crisis isspreading, threateningeverything from mortgagedebt in Australia to short-term money markets in theUnited States.

As the deadly coronaviruspandemic brought moregrim headlines Wednesday,risk gauges in Europe andAsia pushed out further inanother volatile session.The crisis has also closedin on Japan’s $650 billionlocal credit market, whichhad been an oasis of calm.

In the US, the front-end isespecially feeling the pain,as pressure builds on com-panies to meet near-termobligations. Just 72 per centof short-dated debt nowtrades above par, versus 99per cent 10 days ago, said

Deutsche Bank strategistCraig Nicol.

“You can’t buy risk,” saidMark Nash, head of fixedincome at Merian GlobalInvestors in London. “Weneed easier financial condi-tions and some virus lightat the end of the tunnel,and we are seeing neitherat the moment.”

CDX is indicating a nega-tive tone, along with plung-ing stock futures, astraders weigh the impact offiscal and mo-netary stimu-lus to counter the effect ofthe coronavirus. “There’sstill plenty of pent-upissuance in the investment-grade market, where bor-rowers have come forwardopportunistically mostly torefinance commercialpaper,” Oaktree CapitalManagement’s HowardMarks said. — Bloomberg

New Delhi, March 18:Realtors’ apex body Credaion Wednesday said the con-struction work has come toa standstill while saleshave been hit following theoutbreak of coronavirus,and demanded the govern-ment to provide a three-month moratorium on debtrepayment, additional liq-uidity and more time tocomplete ongoing realestate projects.

The industry body haswritten a letter to Ministerfor Housing and UrbanAffairs Hardeep Singh Puriseeking a bail out package.

Giving details about theimpact of coronavirusscare on Indian real estate,Credai said sales velocityand the receivables havebeen hit drastically leadingto default/delay in fulfill-ing financial commitments(interest & principal).

Property buyers are skip-ping instalments payableon their purchases of realestate, it said, adding thatrental income of retailproperties has been affect-ed due to closure of mallsand multiplexes.

“The construction work

has come to a standstill anddelays in procurement ordelivery of constructionmaterial (imported andindigenous) as well as thelabour disruptions arebound to cause delay incompletion of ongoingprojects,” Credai said.

The association said thatthe governments worldover have stepped in to pro-vide immediate relief tobusinesses and industry toenable them to deal withthe severity of the Covid-19shock and urged Indiangovernment to announcemeasures to help realestate developers.

Credai recommended var-ious steps that need to betaken immediately forcushioning the shock ofCovid-19 to the Indian realestate sector.

The association said thegovernment should pro-vide relief in interest andprincipal repaymentsfalling due over the nextthree months in caseof real estate projects. Italso requested that penalinterest charged by banksshould be suspended for aperiod of one year. — PTI

Mumbai, March 18: Twostate-owned Indian banksthat were aiming to raisefunds to meet growth tar-gets and build up capitalfor regulatory require-ments have shelved theirplans due to the disruptionto markets caused by thecoronavirus pandemic,sources said.

Bank of India was plan-ning to raise around `2,000crore via a qualified insti-tutional placement (QIP), acommon capital-raisingtool in India, by the end ofMarch.

“These are not normaltimes and it makes sense tolaunch it when the righttime comes,” said a seniorbanking source with directknowledge of the matter.

Central Bank of Indiawas aiming to raise `5,000crore this quarter by issu-ing so-called Basel-III com-pliant bonds. “A boardmeeting will be held nextweek and we will annou-nce the decision then but itmakes no sense to entersuch a disruptive market,”said a senior bank execu-tive, which refused to benamed. — Reuters

Indian banks’fundraisingplans put off

New Delhi, March 18: AllIndian airlines will reportsignificant losses in thefirst quarter of this yearand may initially groundaround 150 planes as theshock from the coronaviruspandemic will be "far deep-er and much longer",according to a report.

Aviation advisory firmCAPA India on Wednesdaysaid consolidated losses areestimated to be in the rangeof $500-600 million for thequarter, excluding AirIndia.

In a report, it said that

some airlines may chooseto temporarily shut downtheir operations by designon the basis that demand isso low that such actionwould result in reducedlosses than if they continueto operate.

As per the report, evenbefore Covid-19 (coron-avirus) appeared on thescene, most Indian carriersalready had very strainedbalance sheets and almostno liquidity.

“This latest shock willonce again expose the vul-nerability of India's avia-

tion system as happenedduring the fuel price spikein 2008. But on that occa-sion the shock was short-lived, even if its impactreverberated for severalyears. This time, the shockitself will be far deeper andmuch longer,” it said.

In the wake of significantreduction in services, thereport said Indian carriersmight initially ground 150aircraft, and the number isexpected to increase asmore domestic operationsare curtailed over the com-ing weeks. — PTI

FC BUREAUNEW DELHI, MARCH 18

Citing the impact of thenovel coronavirus on thecountry’s ailing economy,global ratings agencyStands & Poor (S&P), onWednesday, cut the India’sgrowth story for 2020 to 5.2per cent. Besides, it alsomentioned that the globaleconomy at large is enter-ing a recession amid theunprecedented coron-avirus outbreak.

The growth prediction fol-lows soon after Moody’sInvestors Service had low-ered India’s economicgrowth forecast for 2020 to5.3 per cent from 5.4 percent) on Tuesday. Besides,S&P had earlier projected agrowth rate of 5.7 per centduring the 2020 calendar.

As per analysis of econo-

mists, a massive supply dis-ruptions due to the virusoutbreak in China has nowbrought economic activi-ties to a standstill in manycountries, including India.From US to most Asiancountries, stock marketshave also duly reflected thegloomy scenario in thisregard as well.

“As far as India is con-cerned, the outbreak posesa serious risk consideringthe country’s large popula-tion, and tackling the viruscould significantly hit rev-enues,” they said.

As per S&P statement,Asia-Pacific economicgrowth in 2020 will morethan halve to less than 3 percent as the global economyenters a recession.

“An enormous first-quar-ter shock in China, shut-downs across the US and

Europe, and local virustransmission guarantees adeep recession across Asia-Pacific,” said ShaunRoache, chief Asia-Pacificeconomist at S&P GlobalRatings.

By recession, S&P meantat least two quarters ofwell below-trend growthsufficient to trigger risingunemployment. “Our esti-mate of permanent incomelosses is likely to at leastdouble to more than $400billion,” said Roache.

“The countries most vul-nerable to capital outflowsremain India, Indonesia,and the Philippines,” headded.

However, experts are ofview that supply shocksand demand anomalies areexpected to follow and itcould be months before thesituation normalises.

Mumbai, March 18: TheReserve Bank of India willbuy bonds on the open mar-ket for a total of `10,000crore on Friday to try tokeep all market segmentsliquid and stable, the cen-tral bank said onWednesday.

“With the heightening ofCovid-19 pandemic risks,certain financial marketsegments have been experi-

encing a tightening offinancial conditions asreflected in the hardeningof yields and widening ofspreads,” the RBI said in astatement.

Spreads between govern-ment bonds and corporatebonds have risen in recentdays because of theextreme risk aversion thathas led investors to dumpall assets including Indian

bonds. Foreign investorshave sold a net $3.48 billionworth of debt so far inMarch, taking total out-flows to $5.04 billion in2020, according to latestexchange data.

The high spreads have ledto low trading volumes inthe corporate bonds andcommercial paper markets,prompting the central bankto intervene.

“Trading was almost halt-ed due to risk aversion andthis was causing a lot ofilliquidity, which if allowedto continue could even leadto rollover stopping anddefaults,” a source said,asking not to be named.

In its release, the RBI saidit will buy four bonds dueto mature between 2022 and2025 for a total of `10,000crore on Friday. — Reuters

RBI to buy bonds in open market

FC BUREAUNEW DELHI, MARCH 18

In a move to fight the dead-ly pandemic, the AsianDevelopment Bank (ADB),on Wednesday, announceda $6.5 billion package forits developing membercountries.

The grant is aimed at pro-viding financial assistanceto the National DisasterManage-ment Authority(NDMA) for containing thewild spread of the virus.

In a statement, the multi-lateral lending institutionsaid that package would begiven to the NDMA andwould bet used to halt thespread of the mysteriousvirus.

Indian airlines mayground 150 planes

Credit gets tougher, costlier

India’s GDP to grow 5.2% ADB releases$6.5b to Indiato fight virus

People spend 20% more time watching Netflix, Amazon

Credai red flags slumpin sale of properties

New Delhi, March 18: Indiais considering offering eas-ier loan repayment termsand tax breaks for small-and medium-sized compa-nies to help Asia’s third-largest economy weatherthe onslaught of the coron-avirus, a person withknowledge of the mattersaid.

The finance ministry isconsidering extending loantenors and relaxing bad-debt norms for small firms,the person said, asking notto be identified as the dis-cussions were private.

A spokesman at the min-istry of finance was notimmediately available for acomment.

Prime Minister NarendraModi’s administration isunder pressure to shieldthe economy from theimpact of the virus out-break at a time when expa-nsion is already poised forits weakest pace in morethan a decade. Countries,including the US, Chinaand Indonesia, have annou-nced plans to spend billio-ns of dollars to stem a slidein growth. — Bloomberg

India mulls loansops for MSMEs

USFDA issueswarning letter

to Cipla forGoa plant

WORLD pg 10THE ASIAN AGE | THURSDAY | 19 MARCH 2020 | NEW DELHI

IN BRIEF

Medical systemtroubled: Kim

Seoul: North Korean leaderKim Jong Un acknowledgedthat his country lacks mode-rn medical facilities and call-ed for urgent improvements,state media said Wednesday,

in a rare assessment of theNorth’s health care system

that comes amid worries ab-out the Covid-19 in the imp-

overished country. Outsideexperts say a Covid-19 epid-

emic in the North could bedevastating due its chronic

lack of medical supplies andoutdated health care infrast-

ructure. He made the com-ments during a ceremonymarking the start of con-

struction on a new hospital.

Pakistanis decrysqualid camp

Lahore: Hundreds of Pakista-nis who returned home froma pilgrimage to Iran are stu-ck in filthy Covid-19 quaran-tine camps with limited me-dical care, and fear squalid

conditions are helping spre-ad the virus. Residents of

Taftan camp with Iran saidthe facility lacks running

water or flushable toilets,with detainees only able towash every few days. Gov-

ernment figures show half ofthe 241 confirmed cases ofnovel Covid-19 in Pakistan

are in people who went onpilgrimages to Iran — one ofthe countries hardest-hit by

the disease. “I have beenusing the same mask for

over seven days now,” onequarantined pilgrim said. “If I

didn’t have the virus when Ifirst got here, I wouldn’t besurprised to find out that I

have it now.”

Italy strugglesto make room

Brescia: Three weeks intoItaly’s Covid-19 crisis, Dr.

Sergio Cattaneo has seen anunused ward outfitted intoan intensive care unit in six

days, a hospital laundryroom converted into a giantstretcher-filled waiting room

and a tented field hospitalerected outside to test pos-sible new virus patients. “If

the spreading of this epi-demic is not put under con-

trol, it will bring all hospitalsto their knees.” Cattaneo’s

new ICU added six morebeds to the hospital.

850M students notat school: UnescoParis: More than 850 millionyoung people, or nearly halfthe world’s student popula-

tion, are barred from theirschool and university

grounds because of theCovid-19 pandemic, UNESCO

said Wednesday.Calling it an “unprecedented

challenge” for education,UNESCO said schools had

been closed in 102 countries,with partial closures in 11

more — and there would bemore closures.

Cases of tricking people into giving up credentials are risingSTEALING | INFO

Washington, March 18: Itmay look like an emailfrom a supervisor with anattachment on the new“work from home policy”.But it could be a cleverlydesigned scheme to hackinto your network.

The abrupt move of mil-lions of people to workingremotely has sparked anunprecedented volume ofattacks to trick people intogiving up credentials to at-tackers, according to secu-rity researchers. “We’venever seen anything likethis,” said Sherrod DeGri-ppo, head of threat resear-ch for the security firm Pr-oofpoint. “We are seeing

campaigns with messagevolumes up to hundreds ofthousands which are leve-raging this Covid-19.

“The pandemic has crea-ted a perfect storm for cyb-erattacks, with millions ofpeople working in unfami-liar, less secure circumsta-nces and eager for inform-ation about the virus andnew organisational polici-es being implemented.This opens up an avenuefor malicious actors usingphishing emails or “socialengineering” to gain acce-ss or steal sensitive infor-mation. When someone isworking form their homeit is a similar threat profi-

le as at an airport or a Sta-rbucks, you just don’t havethat protection you mighthave in the workplace,”DeGrippo said.

“And if we are home withfamily where we feel safe,you might see a memberhop on to do homework,and might not understandsecurity controls. Keepingmom’s and dad’s computerfor mom and dad is theright thing to do.”

Tom Pendergast of secu-rity and privacy trainingfirm MediaPRO said manyof the millions of peopleadjusting to the new land-scape are unprepared forteleworking. — AFP

Vatican City, March 18: PopeFrancis stressed Wednesdaythe importance of families andfriends making small gesturessuch as hugs and phone callsduring times of isolation in apandemic. “We must rediscov-er the concrete nature of smallthings, of making small ges-tures toward those around us— family, friends,” the 83-year-old pontiff told the LaRepubblica newspaper.

“They are gestures of tender-ness, of affection, of compas-sion, which are nonethelessdecisive and important — forexample, a hot dish, a caress, ahug, a phone call.” Italian rul-es instruct everyone to keepone metre (three feet) apartwhile in public but say nothingabout what people can do athome. Most business havebeen closed and public eventscancelled since last week.

Italian streets stand desertedexcept for the few who go outshopping or walk their dogs.The Argentine-born Pope hasmade no secret of his own dis-comfort at having to communi-cate with the world’s 1.3 billionCatholics via livestream. TheVatican’s Saint Peter’s Squarehas also been sealed off.

He complained of feeling likehe was sitting in a “cage” thismonth while delivering his fir-st Sunday Angelus Prayer intoa camera instead of out of hisVatican window facing thou-sands of faithful. Italy was thefirst country in Europe to beseriously hit by the Covid-19pandemic. Its 2,503 officialCovid-19 deaths account formore than half of thosereported outside China.

POPE URGESHUGS TO FIGHTOFF ISOLATION

Surge in Covid-themed cyberattacks

2,00,000 hit; Europe shuts bordersCovid controls lead to traffic jams, slow passage of vehicles carrying critical suppliesBerlin, March 18: Desp-erate travellers choked Eu-ropean border crossingson Wednesday after natio-ns implemented strict con-trols in an attempt to slowthe spread of the Covid-19virus, creating traffic jamsmiles long and slowing thepassage of trucks carryingcritical supplies.

The number of peopleinfected worldwide crestedthe 200,000 mark and deat-hs topped 8,000, with thenumber of people now rec-overed at more than 82,000,according to a tally kept byJohns Hopkins University.

In an attempt to alleviatesome of the pressure fromeastern Europeans stuckin Austria trying to returnhome, Hungary overnightopened its borders in phas-es. Bulgarians were firstallowed to cross in careful-ly controlled convoys, thenRomanians had a turn.

But by early Wednesdayon the Austrian side of theborder, trucks were backedup for 28 kilometres andcars for 14 kilometres asrules allowing only Hung-arians or transport trucksthrough the country’s bor-ders kicked back in.

European Union leadershave been working on howto make sure that food,medical supplies and otheressential goods keep flowi-ng but so far borders havebeen clogged. Looking ahe-ad, they’re also trying tofigure out ways to allow se-asonal agricultural work-ers, needed to keep the pro-duction of food going, totravel back and forth acro-ss essentially closed borde-rs. Nations around the wo-rld were facing the sameissues, with the US and Ca-nada working on a mutualban on nonessential travelbetween the two countries.

In Southeast Asia, the ca-useway between Malaysiaand the financial hub ofSingapore was eerily quietafter Malaysia shut its bor-ders, while the Philippinesbacked down on an ordergiving foreigners 72 hoursto leave from a large partof its main island.

President Donald Trum-p’s administration was co-nsidering a plan to immed-iately return to Mexico allpeople who cross Americ-a’s southern border illega-lly, according to two offici-als who spoke on the con-dition of anonymity beca-use the plan hasn’t beenfinalised. In far-flung Haw-aii, the governor encour-aged travellers to postponetheir island vacations forat least the next 30 days,while the governor of Ne-vada — home to Las Vegas— ordered a monthlongclosure of the state’s casi-nos. Worried about the ec-onomic fallout of the glob-al shutdown, the US, Brita-in and the Netherlands an-nounced rescue packagestotalling hundreds of bil-lions of dollars.

German Chancellor Ang-ela Merkel said Europeanleaders agreed in a confer-ence call to the commis-sion's proposal for anentry ban to the bloc —along with Norway, Switz-erland, Iceland and Brit-ain — with “very, very lim-ited exceptions”. Germanywill implement the deci-sion immediately. But sofar, European Unionefforts to smooth the tran-sition have failed.

— AP

Trucks wait in a traffic jam on a highway near Briesen, some 12 km from the Polish border, on Wednesday, asPolish border authorities conducted strenuous health checks before allowing people to return in an attempt to fightthe spread of the novel Covid-19. — AFP

Prince Harry taking ‘measures’London, March 18: Brit-ain’s Queen Elizabeth II’sgrandson Prince Harry issaid to be taking “appropr-iate measures” after hewas seen hugging Formu-la One driver Lewis Ham-ilton at an event in the UKearlier this month beforeflying out to join wife Me-ghan Markle and sonArchie in Canada.

Hamilton was picturedwith British actor IdrisElba and Sophie Trudeau,the wife of the CanadianPrime Minister — both ofwhom have since testedpositive for Covid-19.

In another development,the Queen has cancelledall her appointments forthe next few months and isset to leave BuckinghamPalace in London on Thur-sday to be based at Winds-or Castle for an extendedperiod of time amid theCovid-19 pandemic outbre-ak which has claimed 71

lives in the country. Themonarch, who turns 94next month, was to host aseries of garden partiesand Easter related eventsbut will now spend timeindoors in Windsor, south-east England, in consultat-ion with her medical expe-

rts and the UK governme-nt. Her regular “audienc-es” with PM Boris Johns-on are to continue but as a“sensible precaution andfor practical reasons”, anumber of other changesare being made to the restof her diary. — PTI

PANIC-STRICKEN INDIAN STUDENTSIN UK DESPERATE TO GET HOME

‘WARTIME’ SCENEIN UK AS 71 DIEOF CONTAGIONLondon, March 18: The UKmust act like a “wartime”government and do wh-atever it takes to supportthe country’s economy,Prime Minster Boris John-son said as Britain’s deathtoll from the Covid-19 roseto 71 and the number ofcases stand at nearly 2,000.

The cases exploded by407 to 1,950 on Monday, thebiggest daily rise. “Wemust act like any wartimegovernment and do whate-ver it takes to support oureconomy,” he said. Opposi-tion Labour leader JeremyCorbyn urged the govern-ment to suspend home re-ntal fees and ban evictionsof tenants during the Cov-id-19 crisis. — PTI

London, March 18: Indianstudents in the UK aredesperate to return to Ind-ia and have flooded the In-dian High Commissionhere with queries aboutwhen they are likely to getback home and be with th-eir families, as New Delhibans travellers from Brit-ain starting on Wednesd-ay due to the fast-spread-ing Covid-19 pandemic.

Universities and student

associations in the UK areputting out advisories totry and calm some of thepanic among the students,many of whom are on vis-as that are close to expiryand others who simplywant to be with their lov-ed ones as all face-to-faceclasses begin to be cancel-led. Many were booked onflights later this monthbut are now stranded at le-ast until March 31. — PTI

147: Iran’s biggestjump in fatalities

France reports27 fresh deaths

US toll 105 as virusaffects all 50 statesWashington, March 18:The number of deathsdue to the new Covid-19 inthe US has reached 105,with the outbreak spread-ing to all 50 states, even asPresident Donald Trumpmounted a warlike effortto contain the situation,including an economicstimulus package of $1trillion. The first fatalityfrom Covid-19 was report-ed from the Washingtonstate on February 26.

Less than a month later,the toll has crossed 100.As of March 17, the figurestood at 105 and the num-ber of confirmed infectio-ns crossed 6,500.

The World Health Orga-nisation has declared Co-vid-19 a pandemic. Presid-ent Donald Trump hassaid that the crisis in theUS might continue tillJuly and August. Accordi-ng to The WashingtonPost, most of the deathshave occurred in peopleover 70 and those with un-derlying conditions.

— PTI

EPIDEMIC CLAIMS 11 MORE LIVES INCHINA AS WUHAN HAS SINGLE CASEBeijing, March 18: The epi-centre of the novel Covid-19 outbreak Wuhan city inChina reported a singleconfirmed case for the sec-ond consecutive day onTuesday even as 11 peopledied of the deadly diseasein the country, taking thetoll to 3,237, health offi-cials said on Wednesday.Wuhan had reported a sin-gle confirmed case onMonday as China began

phased withdrawal of tho-usands of medical person-nel deployed in the hard-hit Hubei province.

For the second day onTuesday, the city reportedonly one new confirmedcase. China’s NationalHealth Commission (NHC)said 11 new deaths and 13new confirmed cases ofnovel Covid-19 infectionwere reported in the coun-try on Tuesday. — PTI

Washington, March 18:China is engaged in a dis-information campaign toshift its responsibility inthe spread of the Covid-19,US Secretary of StateMike Pompeo has alleged.

“Now is not the time forrecrimination. Now is thetime to solve this globalpandemic and work to takedown risks to Americansand people all across theworld,” he told reporterson Tuesday.

Asked about the Chineseallegation that the USarmy planted the Covid-19in Wuhan province of Chi-na, Pompeo said, “The dis-information campaign (onCovid-19) that they arewaging is designed to shiftresponsibility.”

“There will come a daywhen we will go evaluatehow the entire world resp-onded. We know that the fi-rst government to be awa-re of the ‘Wuhan virus’

was the Chinese governm-ent. That imposes a specialresponsibility to raise theflag to say, ‘We have a prob-lem, this is different andunique and presentsrisk’,” he added. It took an“awful long time” for theworld to become aware ofthis risk that was sittingthere in China, the topAmerican diplomat said.

“We’ll do the after-actionwhen the time is right.Every nation has a respon-

sibility to share all of the-ir data, all of their inform-ation in as timely and acc-urate a fashion as theyhave the ability to do notonly because it is the rightthing, but because that ishow you save lives of yourown people,” he said.

He added that the Chin-ese Communist Party hada responsibility to do thisnot only for others who arenow suffering, but for the-ir own people. — PTI

Paris, March 18: Frenchhealth authorities havesaid that 27 more peoplehad died from the Covid-19in the country, bringingthe total death toll in Fran-ce to 175 people. There arenow 7,730 confirmed casesof Covid-19 in the country,France’s top health officialJerome Salomon toldreporters on Tuesday, ajump of over 1,000 on theday earlier.

His comments came asFrance entered the firstday of a lockdown orderedby President EmmanuelMacron which orders peo-ple to stay at home and pr-ohibits all non-essentialmovements. Salamon saidof those infected, 2,579 pe-

ople were currently hospi-talised including 699 in in-tensive care.

Seven percent of thosewho have died are agedunder 65. “We are progres-sively moving to a generalepidemic over the territo-ry” of France, he said,urging people to “stay athome” and keep contactsto a minimum. — AFP

Tehran, March 18: Iranreported its single biggestjump in deaths from thenew Covid-19 on Wednesd-ay as another 147 peopledied, raising the country’soverall death toll to 1,135.The nearly 15 per cent spi-ke in deaths — amid a tot-al of 17,361 confirmed cas-es in Iran — marks the bi-ggest 24-hour rise in fatali-ties since officials first ac-knowledged virus cases inIran mid-February.

Still, even as the numberof cases continues to grow,food markets were still pa-cked with shoppers on We-dnesday and highways cr-owded with traffic as fami-lies travelled between citi-es ahead of the PersianNew Year, Nowruz, on Fri-day. Iran’s deputy healthminister Alireza Raisi ur-ged the public to avoid tra-vel and crowded places. Hetold Iranians the comingperiod represented two“golden weeks” to try curbthe virus from spreading.

He criticised people fornot adhering to the warn-ings to stay home, sayingthe virus is very serious.“This is not a good situati-on at all,” he said. Iran’sPresident Hassan Rouhanion Wednesday defendedhis government’s responseto the Covid-19 outbreak inthe face of of widespread

criticism that officials act-ed too slowly and mayhave even covered up initi-al cases before infectionsrapidly spread across thecountry. In a speech to hisCabinet, Rouhani said thegovernment was “straight-forward” with the nation,saying it announced theoutbreak as soon as it lear-ned about it on February19. — AP

103-YEAR-OLDIRANIAN WOMANMAKES RECOVERYTehran, March 18: A 103-year-old woman in Iranhas recovered after beinginfected with the new Co-vid-19, state media report-ed, despite overwhelmingevidence the elderly aremost at risk from the dise-ase. The unnamed womanhad been hospitalised inthe central city of Semnanfor about a week, IRNAnews agency said. But shewas “discharged after ma-king a complete recove-ry”, Semnan University ofMedical Sciences headNavid Danayi was quotedas saying by IRNA lateTuesday. — AFP

China gave disinformation: Pompeo

I think that all of us whoare not experts initially

underestimated the Covid-19.But now it is clear that this isa virus that will keep us busyfor a long time yet. — URSULA VON DER LEYEN

President, EuropeanCommission

● ● Mexico City borough has announced thatLatin America’s most famous re-enactmentof the crucifixion of Christ will be closed tothe public for the first time in 177 years to

prevent the spread of Covid-19

●● Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemerstatue, which last year saw almost 2 million

visitors, closed at day-end Tuesday andwon’t reopen for at least a week.

●● Pakistan Foreign Minister ShahMahmood Qureshi said on Wednesday that

he will self-isolate for five days after hisrecent trip to China as a precautionary

measure to limit the spread of the deadlyCovid-19 that has infected 249 people in the

country.

●● “We don’t know exactly how long this isgoing to take. It could be weeks. It could bemonths,” said Canadian PM Justin Trudeau.

●● Bangladesh reported its first death whilefour new infections were detected, takingcase tally in the country to 14.

●● A summit of European Union leadersscheduled for next week will be held byvideoconference because of Covid-19.

●● The number of people infected by Covid-19 in Spain soared past 13,700 with thenumber of deaths rising to almost 600,government data showed.

●● Sri Lanka on Wednesday imposed a curfew in the Western coastal areas

The world is atwar with a hid-

den enemy. WEWILL WIN! We haveto get rid of this,we have to win thiswar and ideallyquickly.

— DONALD TRUMP,US President

COVID SCOURGE ACROSS WORLD ● ● RUSSIA ANNOUNCEDCovid-19 cases jumpedalmost 29 per centovernight to 147 despitethe Kremlin imposingtight controls on move-ment and saying the situ-ation is under control.

USA-CANADA BORDER TO BE SHUTWashington, March 18: USPresident Donald Trumpand Canadian PrimeMinister Justin Trudeauhave agreed to close theUS-Canada border to allnon-essential travel in anattempt to curb the spreadof Covid-19.

“We will be, by mutualconsent, temporarily clos-

ing our northern borderwith Canada,” Mr Trumptweeted. He said tradewould not be affected.

Both countries had alre-ady issued sweeping travelbans but had maintainedexemptions for each other.Canada relies on the USfor approximately 75% ofits exports. — Agencies

● ● NEW YORK is to get a1,000-room hospital shipthat will dock in thecity’s harbour to fightCovid-19, GovernorAndrew Cuomo said.

WORLD pg 11THE ASIAN AGE | THURSDAY | 19 MARCH 2020 | NEW DELHI

IN BRIEF4 Pak Armymen,

7 terrorists killed

Iraq’s Shia parties line up tooppose new PM-designate

Washington, March 18:The US for the first timeheld Russia responsiblefor the deaths of dozens ofTurkish troops in Syria asit vowed accountability.

An airstrike last monthin the Idlib region killed 34Turkish soldiers, althoughAnkara blamed SyrianPresident Bashar al-Assadand reached a new cease-fire deal with Moscow.Secretary of State MikePompeo, announcing newsanctions on Syrian offi-cials on Tuesday, placed

blame on Russia, whichalong with Iran has backedAssad in his bloody questto crush rebels.

“We believe Russia haskilled dozens of Turkishmilitary personnel in thecourse of their militaryoperation,” Pompeo toldreporters, without naminga specific incident. “Westand with our Nato allyTurkey and will consideradditional measures thatsupport Turkey at the endof the violence,” he said.

Analysts widely doubted

that Assad’s rundown airforce could effectively hitTurkish forces but untilnow the US had steeredclear of blaming Russia,mindful of official state-ments by Ankara.

After the killings, Turkeykilled dozens of Syriantroops as retaliation butPresident Recep TayyipErdogan flew to Moscow tonegotiate a ceasefire withhis counterpart VladimirPutin that includes jointRussian-Turkish patrols.

— AFP

Baghdad, March 18: Iraq’stypically divided Shiitepolitical parties lined upon Wednesday to signaltheir opposition to pre-mier-designate Adnan al-Zurfi, less than 24 hoursafter his nomination.

The 54-year-old lawmak-er and former Najaf gover-nor was nominatedTuesday to be Iraq’s newprime minister, the secondattempt to replace outgo-ing premier Adel AbdelMahdi this year.

Zurfi has 30 days to forma cabinet, which mustearn a vote of confidencefrom iraq's 329-memberparliament. But severalShiite blocs have alreadysignalled their displeasurewith the way Zurfi wasselected.

On Wednesday, the Stateof Law coalition, led by ex-prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, and lawmakerslinked to the relatively

moderate cleric Ammaral-Hakim said theyopposed the president’sunilateral selection of theprime minister.

President Barham Saleh,they insisted, should havereferred to parliament’slargest bloc to select anominee. The powerfulFatah bloc, the politicalarm of the Hashed al-Shaabi military network,had also slammed Zurfi’snomination as unconstitu-tional. Along with somesmaller parties, those

opposed could add up tomore than 100 lawmakersvoting against a Zurfi-ledcabinet.

One key Shiite leader,cleric Moqtada Sadr, saidWednesday he would notannounce a position onZurfi’s nomination. Kurd-ish and Sunni blocs, mean-while, will likely be sup-portive of the candidate.Zurfi was a longtime mem-ber of the Dawa party, thehistoric opposition forceto dictator SaddamHussein, who was oustedin a 2003 US-led invasion.

A dual US-Iraqi national,

Zurfi spent roughly adecade in the UnitedStates and returned afterthe invasion to serve asgovernor of his native cityof Najaf under the US-dominated occupying for-ce. Respected as a states-man focused on improvingpublic services and securi-ty, many hope he couldshelter Iraq from spi-ralling tensions betweenTehran and Washington.

In his first public state-ment late Tuesday, Zurfipledged to hold electionswithin a year of forminghis cabinet and vowed torespond to the demands ofprotesters hitting thestreets for months overgovernment graft and inef-ficiency. He also promisedto improve security in thecountry, which has seenmore than two dozen rock-et attacks targeting for-eign installations sincelate October. — AFP

Washington, March 18:Former vice presidentJoe Biden has claimedvictory over rival BernieSanders by sweepingthree key primaries inFlorida, Illinois andArizona, inching closer inthe race to become thepresumptive Democraticpresidential nominee toface US President Trumpin November’s election.Biden, 77, won the threeprimaries with animpressive margin, tro-uncing Vermont SenatorSanders, 78, to become theDemocratic party’s presi-dential nominee.

Whereas Ohio, whichwas supposed to hold aprimary on Tuesday, post-poned it due to the coron-avirus pandemic. As ofTuesday, Biden had 1,121pledged delegate in hiskitty with Sanders trail-ing behind with 839 dele-gates.

Either of the two presi-dential aspirants need1,991 of the 3,979 pledgeddelegates to win the nom-ination during theDemocratic NationalConvention in Wisconsinin July. In his speech,Biden laid out his visionfor America, call on

Americans to cometogether to address thisglobal health pandemic,and describe how we will

come out of the crisisstronger as one nation.

Biden spoke from hishome in Delaware keep-

ing the guidelines ofavoiding a gathering of 10or more people. He urgedsupporters of the Sanderscampaign to join him.Commending the remark-able passion and tenacityof Sanders’ supporters,he said that they haveshifted the fundamentalconversation in this coun-try.

“I hear you. I knowwhat's at stake. I knowwhat we have to do,”Biden said in an impres-sive speech. “This is over.It's over. The election isover tonight. I think thatis very clear,” former USpresident BarackObama’s adviser DavidAxelrod said.

In his brief address,Biden said that tacklingthis pandemic is a nation-al emergency akin to fig-hting a war. It will requireleadership and coopera-tion from every level ofgovernment. “It will requ-ire us to move thoug-htfully and decisively toquickly address both thepublic health crisis andthe economic crisis we’rein. It will require us topay attention to the med-ical and scientific andhealth experts”. — PTI

Peshawar: Four PakistanArmy personnel, including

an officer, and seven terror-ists were killed in anexchange of fire on

Wednesday after securityforces conducted an intelli-

gence-based operation innorthwest Pakistan, the army

said. Acting on a tip-off,security forces launched theoperation in Datta Khel areaof North Waziristan district

bordering Afghanistan. Inthe intense exchange of fire,

seven terrorists and fourarmy personnel soldiers,

including an officer ofLieutenant rank, were killed,

the army said in a pressstatement. The officer was

identified as Agha MuqaddasAli Khan.

St. Patrick’s Day:1 dead in shooting

Corpus Christi (US): Onewoman was killed and

another injured in a shootingon St. patrick’s Day at an

Irish pub in southeast Texas,authorities said. The shoot-

ing happened Tuesday nightat Molly’s Irish Sports Pub inCorpus Christi and a suspect

is in custody, policespokesman Travis Pace said.When officers arrived, they

found one woman dead andanother who had been shot

in the torso, the CorpusChristi Caller Times report-ed. Police interviewed wit-

nesses and identified a sus-pect, who was later arrestedafter a brief foot chase, Pace

said. The suspect’s namewas not immediately

released but Pace said thatperson will likely face

charges of murder andaggravated assault. Pace

said the investigation wasongoing but “it’s not a ran-

dom act of violence.”

US court staysTexas execution

Washington: A US court hasordered a 60-day stay of an

execution scheduled forWednesday in Texas because

of the novel coronavirus.A Texas court rejected John

Hummel’s appeals argu-ments on Monday, but in the

end still granted him relief.“We have also determined

that the execution should bestayed in light of the current

health crisis and the enor-mous resources needed to

address the execution,” theruling said. Hummel, 44, was

sentenced to the deathpenalty for the 2009 killings

of his pregnant wife, theirfive-year-old daughter and

his father-in-law. He wasscheduled to receive a lethal

injection at a prison inHuntsville, Texas. Like everyexecution, Hummel’s would

involve many people —prison guards, lawyers, wit-

nesses, his family and that ofthe victims — to be present,at a time when health auth-orities have warned againstlarge gatherings in order to

stop the spread of virus.

Wellington: MargaretSparrow was 21 years old

when she drank a concoctionto induce an abortion, at a

time when the procedurewas both illegal and socially

unacceptable in NewZealand. Now age 84,

Sparrow was delighted onWednesday when lawmakers

passed a landmark bill thattreats the procedure as ahealth issue rather than a

crime. “It’s been a long timecoming,” said Sparrow, a

doctor who has spent her lifeadvocating for the reproduc-

tive rights of women. Whileviews about abortions have

generally become muchmore liberal in New Zealandsince Sparrow’s experience,

the law, while updated in1977, had not fully reflected

that change. UntilWednesday’s vote, the pro-

cedure was still regulatedunder the Crimes Act, requir-

ing women to prove to adoctor that their pregnancypresented a danger to their

physical or mental healthbefore they could get anabortion. Justice minister

Andrew Little said thatrequirement forced mostwomen to lie about their

mental health and causedunnecessary delays which

added health risks. The newlaw removes those obstacles,allowing women who are upto 20 weeks pregnant to get

an abortion and those over 20 weeks to get one

with approval from a health practitioner.

Lawmakers voted 68 to 51 infavor of the bill. — AP

NEW ZEALANDDECRIMINALISES

ABORTION

The Washington Monument is visible behind a man walking along an almost empty Tidal Basin lined with cherryblossoms that are about to peak, on Wednesday. — AFP

Cherry blossom

Washington, March 18:Leftist Bernie Sanderswas under fresh pres-sure Wednesday to bowout of the race for theDemocratic WhiteHouse nomination afterlosing the three latestprimaries in contestshobbled by the coron-avirus pandemic.

Political moderate JoeBiden swept all three ofTuesday’s contests,building a solid lead indelegates to the party’sJuly nominating con-vention as Democraticvoters appeared to coa-lesce around him as thebest chance to defeatPresident DonaldTrump in November.

Sanders, once therace’s frontrunner, wasconsidering his options

as more states post-poned their primaryvotes amid a nationalshutdown for theCOVID-19 emergency.

“The next primarycontest is at least threeweeks away,” saidSanders’ campaign man-ager Faiz Shakir in astatement. “Sen.Sanders is going to behaving conversationswith supporters toassess his campaign.”

Biden handilytrounced Sanders ineach of Tuesday’s bat-tlegrounds. In thebiggest prize of Florida,the 77-year-old formervice president grabbed62 per cent of the voteagainst 23 per cent for78-year-old Sanders.

— PTI

● ● ZURFI HAS 30 days toform a cabinet, whichmust earn a vote of confi-dence from Iraq’s 329-member parliament. Butseveral Shiite blocs havealready signalled their dis-pleasure with the wayZurfi was selected.

Madrid, March 18: Spain’s KingFelipe VI and Queen Letizia can-celled Wednesday a planned visitto the United States on April 21where they were due to meet withUS President Donald Trump due tothe coronavirus outbreak. Theroyal palace said in a statementthat the goal was to allow “the USand Spain to continue to dedicateall of their resources and attentionto the response to Covid-19.”

Trump and his wife Melania hopeto host the Spanish royal couple inthe US in the future, the statementadded. Spain is the fourth hardest-hit nation in the world by the coro-navirus pandemic, with over 13,700confirmed cases as of Wednesdayand the number of deaths rising toalmost 600. The nation of around46 million people is on a near totallockdown since the weekend.

— AFP

Adnan al-Zurfi

Biden sweeps 3 major primariesSanders will ‘assess’campaign after loss

Russia behind death of Turkishsoldiers in Syria, says Pompeo

Boston, March 18:Scents can alter howmemories areprocessed in thebrain, according to astudy that suggestsodours may be used totreat memory-relatedmood disorders.

The traditional theo-ry suggests that ourmemories start outbeing processed by asmall, horseshoe-shaped brain areacalled the hippocam-pus, which infusesthem with richdetails, noted theresearchers fromBoston University inthe US.

Over time, especiallywhen we sleep, the setof brain cells thatholds onto a particularmemory reactivatesand reorganises. Thememory then becomesprocessed by the frontof the brain — the pre-frontal cortex —instead of the hip-pocampus, and manyof the details becomelost in the shuffle, theresearchers said.

“If odour could beused to elicit the richrecollection of a mem-ory — even of a trau-matic experience —we could take advan-tage of that (therapeu-tically),” said assis-tant professor SteveRamirez, seniorauthor of the studypublished in Learningand Memory.

The researchers cre-ated fear memories inmice by giving them aseries of harmless butstartling electricshocks inside a spe-cial container. — PTI

Scents canalter howour brainprocesses

Spanish royalscancel US visit

Published by T. Venkateswarlu for and on behalf of Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited at Jawaharlal Nehru National Youth Centre, 219 Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, New Delhi 110 002. and Printed by him at BFL Infotech Limited, C – 9, Sector – III, Noida – 201301. Editor – T. Venkatram Reddy,RNI Registration number 57290/94, Price in Nepal - Nep. Rs. 20.00 per copy.

NEWSMAKERS pg 12THE ASIAN AGE | THURSDAY | 19 MARCH 2020 | NEW DELHI

IN BRIEF

New York: Katy Perry’s smashhit Dark Horse was not

copied from a Christian rapsong, a US judge has ruled.

The ruling overturns a jury’sverdict from last summer,

which said Perry’s song liftedan eight-note riff from

Flame’s 2009 song JoyfulNoise. In her decision, US dis-trict judge Christina A Snyder

said the sequence of noteswas “not a particularly

unique or rare combination”.As a result, Perry’s team no

longer owe Flame $2.8m(£2.3m) in damages. Snyder

drew on the testimony of therapper’s own witness, musi-

cologist Todd Decker, in con-cluding the jury had reached

the wrong verdict. ‘A relative-ly common eight-note combi-

nation of unprotected ele-ments that happens to be

played in a timbre commonto a particular genre of music

cannot be so original as towarrant copyright protec-

tion,” she wrote. — Agencies

Los Angeles: Black Widow,starring Scarlett Johansson,

has been pulled by MarvelStudios in the wake of thecoronavirus outbreak. The

Cate Shortland-directed film,which was scheduled to be

released on May 1, is delayeduntil further notice, reported

Deadline. With two biggestmovie chains, AMC and

Regal, shutting down for pos-sibly close to two months, it

was an inevitable decision bythe makers. Marvel has also

postponed Amy Adams-star-rer The Woman in the

Window, a 20th Century titleand The Personal History of

David Copperfield, featuringDev Patel, from its

Searchlight banner, whichwere supposed to debut onApril 15 and May 8, respec-

tively. It is unclear when anyof these films will be

released. — PTI

Katy wins appeal in plagiarism case

Scarlett Johansson’sBlack Widow delayed

Los Angeles: Maggie Griffin,TV personality and themother of actor-comic

Kathy Griffin, has died atthe age of 99. Kathy Griffintook to Twitter on Tuesday

to share the news of hermother’s death. The Kathy

host said she is “gutted” byMaggie Griffin’s passing.

“My Mom, the one and only,Maggie Griffin, passed awaytoday. I am gutted. My bestfriend. I’m shaking. I won’tever be prepared. “I’m so

grateful you guys got to bepart of her life. You knew

her. You loved her. She knewit. Oh, and of course she

went on St Patrick’s Day,”Kathy Griffin wrote. In 2019,

Kathy Griffin revealed thather mother was suffering

from dementia. — PTI

Kathy Griffin’s momMaggie dies at 99

London: Oscar-winning film-maker Bong Joon-Ho is inter-

ested in making a musical infuture. However, the Parasite

director, who is fresh off froma historic haul at Academy

Awards 2020, said his versionof a musical would have to

be “different”. “Iwould love to

make a musical.Characters

would beginsinging, thenthink, ‘Oh myGod, f*** this,

this is toocheesy,’ and

stop suddenly.“There are amazing musical

films, like ‘Singin’ In TheRain’. But when I watch them,

I feel very embarrassed andstart blushing. So it would

have to be... Different,” Bongtold Empire magazine. A sen-sational class satire, Parasiteshattered the 92-year Oscars history recently as it became

the first non-English lan-guage film to earn the best

picture trophy. It was alsoSouth Korea’s first ever win.

The film also scooped Oscarsin original screenplay, inter-

national film and directing forBong, first ever for an Asian.

— PTI

BONG JOON-HOWOULD LOVE TO

MAKE A MUSICAL

Masks, gloves don’t stopCovid-19 spread: ExpertsParis: Wearing masks andgloves as a precautionagainst coronavirus isineffective, unnecessaryfor the vast majority ofpeople, and may evenspread infections faster,experts said Tuesday.

While near-total lock-downs have been imposedin Italy, Spain and nowFrance, the World HealthOrganization’s advice hasremained unchangedsince the start of the glob-al outbreak: wash yourhands, don’t touch yourface, and keep your dis-tance.

The WHO says it isadvisable to wear a protec-tive mask in public if yoususpect you are infected orsomeone you are caringfor is, in which case theadvice is to stay homewhenever possible.

“There are limits to howa mask can protect youfrom being infected andwe’ve said the most impor-tant thing everyone can dois wash your hands, keepyour hands away fromyour face, observe veryprecise hygiene,” saidWHO’s emergencies direc-tor Mike Ryan.

The advice is all the

more urgent given theWHO’s estimate thathealth workers worldwidewill need at least 89 mil-lion masks every month totreat Covid-19 cases.

There are already short-ages of masks for medicalprofessionals around theworld, a problem thatcould get worse as the pan-demic drags on.

But the message aboutmasks hasn’t reachedeveryone.

“I’m surprised to seethrough the window in myministry lots of people inthe street wearing maskswhen that doesn’t corre-spond to our recommenda-tions,” French health min-ister Olivier Veran saidMonday.

Mariam, 35, told AFPthat she was wearing amask because she has an

elderly mother.“Just in case,” said

Mariam, who was alsosporting latex gloves.

Mariam, who didn’twant to give her last name,she said she got her maskfrom “a friend’s motherwho works in a hospital”.

As well as hoovering upstocks sorely needed bymedical professionals,experts say masks cangive people who wearthem a false sense of secu-rity.

For example, many peo-ple who wear them don’tfollow the official adviceof washing their handsthoroughly first, ensuringit’s air tight and not totouch it once it’s on.

“People are always read-justing their masks andthat has the potential tocontaminate them,” said

France’s head of health,Jerome Salomon.

“If someone has comeacross the virus, it’s sure-ly going to be on themask.” Gloves, similarly,don’t greatly heighten pro-tection and could even endup making you sick.

“If people cannot stoptouching their face, gloveswill not serve a purpose,”Amesh Adalja, from JohnsHopkins Center for HealthSecurity, told AFP.

One 2015 study in theAmerican Journal ofInfection control foundthat people touch theirface on average 20 timesan hour.

The novel coronavirus istransmitted via skin con-tact, transferring infectedglobules of mucus via theears, eyes or nose.

“Gloves are not a substi-tute for washing yourhands,” said Adalja,adding that surgicalgloves should only be usedin a medical setting.

Plus, said Veran: “Ifyou’re wearing glovesyou’re not washing yourhands.” For one Paris resi-dent, Oriane, 32, this is nota problem.

— AFP

Facebook bug wrongly deleteauthentic coronavirus newsSan Francisco: Facebooksaid a bug in its anti-spamsystem temporarilyblocked the publication oflinks to news stories aboutthe coronavirus. GuyRosen, Facebook’s vice-president of integrity, saidon Twitter Tuesday thatthe company was workingon a fix for the problem.

Users complained thatlinks to news stories aboutschool closings and otherinformation related to thevirus outbreak wereblocked by the company’sautomated system.

Later on Tuesday, Rosentweeted that Facebookhad restored all the incor-rectly deleted posts, whichalso covered topics beyondthe coronavirus. Rosensaid the problems wereunrelated to any changes

in Facebook’s content-moderator workforce. Thecompany reportedly sentits human moderatorshome this week because ofthe coronavirus outbreak.

A representative forFacebook did not immedi-ately respond to questionson the status ofFacebook’s content mod-erators, many of whom donot work directly for thecompany and are notalways able to work fromhome. — AP

NEWS NUGGETS

London: Britain’s QueenElizabeth II has cancelledall her appointments for thenext few months and is setto leave BuckinghamPalace in London onThursday to be based atWindsor Castle for anextended period of timeamid the coronavirus pan-demic outbreak which hasclaimed 71 lives in the coun-try.

The monarch, who turns94 next month, was to host aseries of garden partiesand Easter related eventsbut will now spend timeindoors in Windsor, south-east England, in consulta-tion with her medicalexperts and the UK govern-ment.

Her regular “audiences”with Prime Minister BorisJohnson are set to continuefor now but the palace saidthat as a “sensible precau-tion and for practical rea-sons”, a number of otherchanges are being made tothe rest of her diary.

“Her Majesty will move toWindsor Castle for theEaster period on Thursday19th March, one week earli-er than planned. It is likelythe Queen will stay therebeyond the Easter period,”Buckingham Palace said ina statement.

— PTI

New York: Undetectedcases of novel coron-avirus, many of whichdid not show severesymptoms, were largelyresponsible for therapid spread of thedeadly Covid-19 out-break in China, accord-ing to a study.

The research, pub-lished in the journalScience, found that 86per cent of all coron-avirus infections wereundocumented prior tothe January 23 travelshutdown in Wuhan.

Scientists atColumbia University inthe US noted that perperson, these undocu-

mented infections werehalf as contagious asdocumented ones.

“The explosion ofCovid-19 cases in Chinawas largely driven byindividuals with mild,limited, or no symp-toms who went unde-tected,” said study co-author Jeffrey Shaman,a professor at ColumbiaUniversity MailmanSchool. “Depending ontheir contagiousnessand numbers, undetect-ed cases can expose afar greater portion ofthe population to virusthan would otherwiseoccur,” Shaman said.

— PTI

‘UNDETECTED CASES FUELLED FASTSPREAD OF CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK’

New Delhi: Rock band‘The Rolling Stones’has announced thatthey are postponingtheir upcoming ‘NoFilter’ tour of NorthAmerica in the light ofthe global coronaviruspandemic.

An announcement inthis regard was madeon the official Twitteraccount of the RockBand, where a state-ment was posted.

“We’re hugely disap-pointed to have to post-pone the tour. We aresorry to all the fans

who were looking for-ward to it, but thehealth and safety ofeveryone has to takepriority. We will all getthrough this togetherand we’ll see you verysoon,” the tweet said.

The ‘No Filter’ sum-mer tour was sched-uled to kick-start inSan Diego on May 8 andend in Atlanta on July9. The statement fur-ther advised the ticketholders to hold on withthe tickets and wait forfurther information.

— ANI

THE ROLLING STONES POSTPONESN. AMERICA TOUR AMID OUTBREAK

QUEEN CANCELSAPPOINTMENTSFOR MONTHS

Tom Hankssays he hasthe ‘blahs’but no fever

Hudgens sorryfor ‘people are going todie’ comment

Melbourne: Hollywoodstar Tom Hanks onWednesday said he andhis wife, actor RitaWilson don’t have feverbut feel the “blahs” sincetheir discharge from anAustralian hospital aftertesting positive for thecoronavirus.

The actors, both 63,checked out of a GoldCoast medical facility onTuesday after spendinga week in self-isolation.

Hanks took toInstagram to give anupdate, his first, aftertheir release from thehospital.

“Hey folks. Good News:One week after testingPositive, in self-isola-tion, the symptoms aremuch the same. No feverbut the blahs,” he said.

The Captain Phillipsstar wrote how he andWilson were spendingtheir time under self-quarantine.

“Folding the laundryand doing the dishesleads to a nap on thecouch.

“Bad news: My wife@ritawilson has won 6straight hands of GinRummy and leads by 201points. But I havelearned not to spread myVegemite so thick,” hesaid.

Sharing a picture of acorona typewriter, hequipped, “I travelledhere with a typewriter,one I used to love.”

“We are all in thistogether. Flatten thecurve. Hanx,” he added.

Wilson, also a singer-songwriter, shared avideo of her singing hersong Broken Man whilerecovering from COVID-19.

“Broken Man by RitaWilson. Written withGary Burr. People aren’tperfect. Gotta love themflaws and all,” she cap-tioned the four minute-long video. — PTI

Bong Joon-Ho

Oslo: The Abel Prize formathematics was onWednesday awarded toIsraeli-American HillelFurstenberg and Russian-born Gregory Margulis,both probability experts,the Norwegian Academyof Science and Letterssaid. The pair were hon-oured “for pioneering theuse of methods from prob-ability and dynamics ingroup theory, number the-ory and combinatorics,”the Academy said in astatement.

Furstenberg, 84, is affili-

ated with the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem,while Margulis, a decadeyounger, is at YaleUniversity.

Furstenberg andMargulis invented so-

called random walk tech-niques, or a path consist-ing of a succession of ran-dom steps. The study ofrandom walks is a centralbranch of probability theo-ry.

The pair used the tech-nique “to investigate math-ematical objects such asgroups and graphs, and inso doing introduced proba-bilistic methods to solvemany open problems,” thestatement said. Their work“has opened up a wealth ofnew results” in diverseareas of mathematics and“brought down the tradi-tional wall between pureand applied mathematics”.

Born in Berlin,Furstenberg and hisJewish family fled NaziGermany for the US just

before the start of WorldWar II.

After starting his careerat top universities likePrinceton and MIT, he leftthe United States for theHebrew University ofJerusalem in 1965 andstayed there until hisretirement in 2003.

Margulis stood out as amath wiz early on. At age16, he won the silver medalat the InternationalMathematical Olympiad,and 16 years later won theprestigious Fields Medal.

— AFP

Los Angeles: VanessaHudgens has apologisedfor an “insensitive”Instagram video whichseemed to question theseriousness of the coro-navirus pandemic.

The High SchoolMusical star told fans:“Even if everybody getsit, like yeah, people aregoing to die, which isterrible... butinevitable?”

She first said her com-ments were taken out ofcontext, the actor nowsays her words were“not at all appropriate”.

She added: “This hasbeen a huge wake upcall.”

The 31-year-old wentlive on Instagram onMonday seeminglyresponding to DonaldTrump’s announcementthat the coronaviruspandemic could stretchinto July and August.

“Until July sounds likea bunch of...” she said,adding: “It’s a virus, Iget it, I respect it.”

After her commentsstarted to circulate onTwitter, the actor/singergot back on Instagram toclarify.

“It’s a crazy time, it’s acrazy, crazy time and Iam at home and in lock-down and that’s what Ihope you guys are doingtoo,” she told her 38.4million followers.

“I don’t take this situa-tion lightly, by anymeans, I am home.”

She followed up with afull apology. “I realisemy words were insensi-tive and not at all appro-priate for the situationour country and theworld are in right now,”she said. — Agencies

� Gloves, similarly,don’t greatly height-en protection andcould even end upmaking you sick. Ifpeople cannot stoptouching their face,gloves will not servea purpose

� People are alwaysreadjusting theirmasks and that hasthe potential to con-taminate them. Ifsomeone has comeacross the virus, it’ssurely going to beon the mask.

Scientists find 1st pulsating white dwarfLondon: Scientists havediscovered a pulsatingwhite dwarf in a doublestar system, which theysay holds import clues onhow our Sun evolved andwill eventually die.

The discovery by scien-tists at the University ofSheffield in the UK meansthe team can see how bina-ry evolution has affectedthe internal structure of awhite dwarf star in detailfor the first time.

An eclipsing binary, ordouble star system, ismade up of two starsorbiting each other andperiodically passing infront of each other as seenfrom the Earth.

White dwarf stars arethe burnt out cores left

behind when a star likethe Sun dies.

This particular whitedwarf could provide key

insights into the struc-ture, evolution and deathof these stars for the firsttime, according to the

study published in thejournal NatureAstronomy.

Most white dwarfs arethought to be made prima-rily of carbon and oxygen,but this particular whitedwarf is made mostly ofhelium.

The researchers thinkthis is a result of its bina-ry companion cutting offits evolution early, beforeit got a chance to fuse thehelium into carbon andoxygen.

The pulsations from thisstar were discovered usingHiPERCAM, a high-speedcamera developed by ateam led by Professor VikDhillon from theUniversity of Sheffield.

— PTI

A pedestrian walks past a mural of a Mapuche woman in Santiago, Chile, on Tuesday.— AP

A youth walks past a mural depicting a train inMumbai on Wednesday. — PTI

A deserted view of Doges’ Palace in Venice on Wednesday. — AFP

A Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket with a payload of 60 satel-lites lifts off at Cape Canaveral in Florida onWednesday . — AP

A image of LHA 120-N150, a substructure of the gigan-tic Tarantula Nebula, which is situated more than 160 000 light-years away. — AFP

A street artiste waits fortourists on an empty DamSquare in Amsterdam onWednesday. — AP

◗ Guy Rosen saidthat the problemswere unrelated toany changes incompany’s content-moderator work-force

Probability experts awarded Abel Maths prize

Gregory Margulis Hillel Furstenberg

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THE ASIANAGE › wp-content › uploads › 2020 › 03 › The-Asia… · combat it. This is the first time Mr Modi will address the public on this issue. He also chaired a meeting