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Heart-wrenching: 12-year-old migrant worker walks 150 kms for home, dies of dehydration

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It is the poor who suffers the most, whatever crisis happens in the country! It is the poor who is at the receiving end, even if he is not at fault. A recent heart-wrenching incident tells the same truth.

A12-year-old girl from Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district reportedly died of exhaustion and dehydration on Monday after completing a 150-km long journey to her home from Telangana where she had gone to work. She was the only child of her parent.

Jamlo Madkam, who worked in chili fields in Perur village, in the southern state of Telangana, embarked on a 200-mile journey home on foot during the nationwide coronavirus lockdown, died just an hour away from her house.

On April 15, Madkam and 11 others, including her brother-in-law, began the journey to their home state of Chattisgarh in central India. They decided to walk home because they were out of work, and weren’t sure when the lockdown would end.

“The distance between the place in Telangana where she worked and Bijapur is 150 kilometres and she died some 50 kilometres away from her native village. She had a meal on Saturday morning but then complained of stomach ache and uneasiness and died around 10am,” Bijapur Chief Medical and Health Officer BR Pujari told media.

He said her samples have tested negative for coronavirus. “Prima facie, it seems she died either due to electrolyte imbalance, exhaustion or dehydration,” he said.

Critics have slammed the government’s failure to address the concerns of migrant workers, even as they rushed to ferry Indians stranded abroad and students with mostly middle-class backgrounds stuck in Rajasthan.

The state government has given 100,000 rupees compensation to Madkam’s parents and would step up measures to monitor and tackle child labour and trafficking, Bijapur official Hemendra Bhuarya said.

“This (Madkam’s death) should have never happened. She was just a child, not a migrant worker,” said independent human rights activist Linga Ram Kodopi, who is based in Chhattisgarh.

This sad incident has left many questions unanswered…..when the government can bring back Indians stranded abroad, why can’t it safely transport these migrant workers at their villages? Till when India will thrive on child labour?? And till when the poor will always have to pay the price???

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Palghar lynching: The sad turn of events that happened on the fateful night

Palghar

With the entire country fighting day and night to overcome the Coronavirus pandemic, there are people who trying to create further panic instead of helping the governments in these testing times. In one such similar barbaric incident, a group of villagers killed three in a brutal incident of ‘mistaken identity’.

In a ruthless turn of events on Thursday night, two saints were beaten to death by villagers in Palghar, which is just around 130 kms away from Mumbai.

What exactly happened….

Two local religious leaders from Kandivali, who were going to Silvassa in an SUV being driven by a hired driver, were stopped on April 16 and attacked by a mob of over 100 people in the Gadchinchale village in Palghar. With sticks, iron rods and their bare hands, the mob beat the trio to death and also attacked a police team that tried to rescue the victims.The three were dragged out of their car and beaten to death with sticks by a mob on suspicion that they were thieves.

Indicating that the three men were attacked as a result of mistaken identity, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said the villagers heard rumours about the presence of thievesstealing children in the area and thought they were the culprits. “Don’t make it communal. There is no communal angle involved,” he said.

A tweet from the Chief Minister’s Office read: “Those trying to inflame passions, must desist from doing so. There is no Hindu-Muslim angle or communalism in this attack. Two policemen were suspended immediately.”

Thackeray has even urged Union Home Minister Amit Shah to take action against those giving communal colour to the incident.

Action being taken

Palgarh Police have arrested 110 people including 9 juveniles, in connection with the lynching. Uddhav Thackeray has said stern action will be taken against those involved in the lynching.The State government has ordered a high-level inquiry into the incident that took place on April 16.

The investigation into the lynching, has been transferred to the Maharashtra Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Meanwhile, two officers with the Palghar Police were suspended on Monday and a departmental enquiry initiated.

Some more details..

The deceased were identified as Chikne Maharaj Kalpavrukshagiri (70), Sushilgiri Maharaj (35), and their car driver Nilesh Telgade (30).

Three people including two sadhus were travelling from Mumbai to Surat in a Maruti Eco car to attend the funeral of their guruji on Thursday. However, they were stopped at the Gujarat border and asked to return. But they didn’t go back and instead took a route through interiors of a village near Palghar. They had to return to Maharashtra and were trying to take another route when they got attacked.

Shocking visuals from Gadchinchale village show locals armed with sticks and stones, attacking a police team as they tried to rescue the men. In one of several videos of the assault, the 70-year-old can be seen begging for his life.

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UP CM Yogi says can’t attend father’s funeral; ministers offer him condolences

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s father, Anand Singh Bisht, passed away this morning. Bisht was undergoing treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi since last month for kidney ailment.

His body is being taken to his village in Pauri district of Uttarakhand.

Informing about the demise, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi said in a statement,”Honourable CM’s father left for his heavenly abode at 10.44 am. Our deepest condolences,”.

Yogi Adityanath received the news of his father’s death during a meeting on the COVID-19 crisis.A senior bureaucrat tweeted, “The news of his father breathing his last came to him in midst of the meeting. Unfazed by the news Yogi Adityanath stood up only after completing the meeting on COVID-19.”

Expressing grief over his father’s death, the Chief Minister said he would not be able to attend the last rites tomorrow due to the fight against coronavirus.

Several leaders including Union Minister Smriti Irani, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Akhilesh Yadav have condoled the death of Yogi Adityanth’s father.

Former UP chief minister and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav also condoled the death.

“My deepest condolences on the death of Shri Anand Singh Bishtji, father of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. May God give courage to the family to suffer pain in this hour of grief. Soulful tribute,” Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tweeted.

State ministers including Satish Mahana, Siddhartha Nath Singh, Suresh Rana, Satish Dwivedi, Rajendra Pratap Singh, Brijesh Pathak also expressed their grief over the development.

The UP CM’s father was being treated at All India Institute Of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, Delhi. He was admitted to the hospital on March 15. Yogi’s father had complications in kidney and liver.

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Amazon, Flipkart & other e-comm sites can’t deliver non-essential item till lockdown

Days after the government had allowed e-commerce companies such as Amazon, Flipkart and others to operate under the current lockdown without stating any distinction between delivery of essential and non-essential goods, it has now revised the order.

“Supply of non-essential goods by e-commerce companies to remain prohibited during lockdown,” the ministry of home affairs said in a statement.

The official Twitter account of the Ministry of Home Affairs has also confirmed this information. “#IndiaFightsCorona Supply of non-essential goods by e-commerce companies to remain prohibited during #Lockdown2 to fight #COVID19,” said the spokesperson on the social media platform.

The announcementcomes after a number of questions were raised by the opposition and traders about the government’s decision.

Prior to the development, Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal others, which were so far delivering essential items only including grocery, healthcare and hygiene products, etc. were preparing to resume their operations on full-scale post April 20.

“CAIT demolished a sinister plan of e-commerce companies to trade in non-essential commodities. Accepting the objection of CAIT, the MHA excluded the permission granted earlier and now e-commerce can only trade in essential commodities,” said Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) Secretary-General Praveen Khandelwal.

There were several reports of delivery partners of e-commerce firms being roughed up by the police, but eventually the Home Ministry assured the companies that they would be able to operate and deliver essential goods.

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Wuhan sees 50% rise in Corona deaths; WHO says ‘this will happen to all countries’

Amid growing global doubts about Chinese transparency, with many accusing that the government had concealed the extent of the epidemic, China’s Wuhan on Friday saw a raise of 50 percent in coronavirus death toll.

Officials placed the new tally at 3,869 deaths from the coronavirus in the central Chinese city, an increase of 1,290 from the previous figure.

Wuhan, where the global pandemic emerged, suffered the vast majority of China’s fatalities from COVID-19.

The change also pushes the nationwide death toll up by nearly 39 percent to 4,632, based on official national data released earlier on Friday.

Following the trend, the World Health Organization said Friday that many countries would likely follow China in revising up their death counts once they start getting the coronavirus crisis under control.

“This is something that is a challenge in an ongoing outbreak: to identify all of your cases and all of your deaths,” Maria van Kerkhove, the WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead, told a virtual press conference in Geneva.

“I would anticipate that many countries are going to be in a similar situation where they will have to go back and review records and look to see: did we capture all of them?”

Wuhan’s epidemic prevention and control headquarters cited several reasons for the missed cases, including the fact that the city’s medical staff were overwhelmed in the early days as infections climbed, leading to “late reporting, omissions or mis-reporting”.

It also cited insufficient testing and treatment facilities, and said some patients died at home and thus their deaths were not properly reported.

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From chopping hands to beatings: The sorry state of affairs of Corona Warriors continue!

While more than half of India is sitting inside their homes to fight the Coronavirus, there are many who are doing their duties and taking care of us, risking their own lives during this severe pandemic. Doctors, nurses, medical staff, police and many other essential service providers who are working despite the risk of Coronavirus pandemic have been hailed as ‘Corona warriors’ by Prime Minister Modi.

However, inspite of valuing and respecting them, there is some section of people in India who are stooping down to a level where they are not just disrespecting them but even hitting them.

Most recently, one such case has come to light from Lucknow, where a sweeper has accused the policemen of beating him without any reason. This sweeper was going to his work. During this time, the police stopped him and hit him, alleging violation of lockdown rules and made a challan of his car without reason, while the sweeper had the helmet and all the documents on the spot.

When the scavenger showed his I-card of the Municipal Corporation, the policemen called him fake. The policemen told Sunil that there is no sign of any officer on his card and beat him up.

Few days back, in the most horrifying incident, a group of four-five ‘Nihangs’ chopped off wrist of Assistant Sub Inspector Harjit Singh, who, along with other cops, tried to stop the vehicle of nihangs, who tried to break the lockdown rules by crashing and crossing the barricades. The Corona warrior underwent a surgery where his cut hand was sewed back again successfully.

A female resident doctor was on Tuesday allegedly assaulted by patients at Delhi’s Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, dedicated for treating persons infected with COVID-19 infection.The alleged attacked occurred inside a surgical ward. A male doctor, who came to the rescue of the victim, was also manhandled by the patients.

In another incident, heath workers, who had gone to quarantine the family members of a COVID-19 patient, were attacked in Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad on Wednesday.

Three medics were injured and some vehicles were also vandalised in the incident.

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Lockdown 2.0 guidelines: Here’s what will be open now & what remains shut

The Home Ministry today issued guidelines for the second version of lockdown, that commenced from 15th April and will end on May 3rd, in India. Under the new set of rules, certain sectors will be allowed to function from 20th April, in order to ease public hardship in the wake of coronavirus outbreak.

While, the air, rail and inter-state travel remains suspended, the government has allowed agricultural activities, health services and industries operating in rural areas to function.

Here are key points that you should remember:

What will be open:

  • Farming operations, agencies involved in procurement of agricultural produce, ‘mandis’ operated by the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) will be allowed in areas that are not COVID-19 hotspots after April 20.
  • Shops of farm machinery, its spare parts, supply chain, repairs, ‘Custom Hiring Centres’ related to machinery will also remain open.
  • The supply chain of milk, milk products, poultry and live-stock farming and tea, coffee and rubber plantations will resume.
  • Highway ‘dhabas’, truck repairing shops and call centres for government activities wil also remain operational from Monday.
  • Grocery stores, fruit, vegetables shops or carts, milk booths, poultry and meat and fish shops will remain open during lockdown.
  • Self-employed electricians, IT repairs, plumbers, motor mechanics and carpenters will be allowed after April 20.

What still remains shut:

  • MHA has barred all kinds of public transport and prohibiting opening of public places, including shopping malls, gyms, schools and colleges, till May 3.
  • Inter-state, inter-district movement of people, metro, bus services continue will be prohibited
  • Educational institutions, coaching centres, domestic, international air travel, train services will also remain suspended.
  • Public places like cinema halls, malls, shopping complexes, gymnasiums, sports complexes, swimming pools, bars will also be shut till May 3.
  • All social, political, sports, religious functions, religious places, places of worship shall be closed for public till May 3.
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NASA astronauts set to return to a newly changed ‘COVID’ world!

Two Nasa astronauts expect a difficult return to a drastically changed world next week, after being onboard the International Space Station for almost a year.

Andrew Morgan shared with media that the ISS crew had tried to keep abreast of news regarding the coronavirus pandemic, but it was hard to comprehend what was really going on and what to expect when his nine-month mission ends next Friday.

Sharing her experience, Jessica Meir, who last year took part in the first all-female spacewalk, said, “It is quite surreal for us to see this whole situation unfolding on the planet below. We can tell you that the Earth still looks just as stunning as always from up here, so it’s difficult to believe all the changes that have taken place since both of us have been up here.”

The three astronauts will return to Earth exactly 50 years after the Apollo 13 crew splashed down in the Pacific ocean. An oxygen tank explosion aborted that moon-landing mission.

“Now there’s a crisis and the crisis is on Earth,” Morgan said.

Several astronauts offered comforting words on Twitter this week as countries around the world asked citizens to stay at home and closed schools and businesses to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Not all of the astronauts’ tweets mention coronavirus specifically, but they do talk about coping in stressful times. Wherever you are, we can probably agree these are stressful times — and we hope that you are doing OK.

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Corona: Modi extends lockdown till 3rdMay, says ‘India is on the right track’

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the extension in lockdown till 3rd may, as he addressed the nation today on the last day of the first part of the lockdown. The 21-day nationwide bandh was supposed to end today, however, has been extended as Coronavirus cases continue to rise in India.

The PM said that the lockdown will be super strict till April 20 and all regions will be monitored to check whether the rules are being followed. He said that rules will be eased for areas where the lockdown is implemented properly and fewer new cases are registered till April 20. He said the government will release a detailed plan for the lockdown tomorrow.

He said the decision was largely taken to benefit daily wage earners and the poor who are finding it hard to survive in the current scenario of shutdown.

Appreciating India’s efforts to fight the pandemic, Modi said, “Due to India’s holistic and integrated approach, India’s fight against Corona has been appreciable and notable. Web have been able to curb down the menace to a great extent due to the lockdown that we took at an early stage. We are strongly marching ahead on the right path to win the battle.”

“We did not wait for the problem to increase but acted immediately. When there were only 550 corona cases, we implemented a 21-day lockdown.The way people are following lockdown even during festivals is appreciable. Some are facing problem in getting food, others are facing trouble in going out and are forced to stay away from home,” PM Modi said.

Praising the efforts of state governments, Modi said how all the authorities came together and are giving a tough fight to COVID-19 adding that the country had enough supply of ration and medicine.

“If we look at it from an economic angle, it (lockdown) might look an expensive decision. We have paid a heavy price for it but the lives of Indians can never be valued. The path we have followed is being discussed internationally. Governments in various states, health departments in states have worked with a lot of responsibility,” Modi said.

Concluding his addressal, Modi urged people to follow the below mentioned 7 steps:

  1. Take proper care of the senior citizens, especially those with underlying problems.
  2. Lockdown and social distancing should be properly followed. Home-made face covers and masks should be used.
  3. Increase your immunity by following directions given by Ayush Ministry.
  4. To help curb coronavirus spread, download AarogyaSetu application.
  5. Wherever possible, help poor families.
  6. In your businesses, help your co-workers, don’t downsize people.
  7. Respect Coronavirus ‘soldiers’ like doctors, nurses, sanitation workers and the police force.

 

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COVID-19 UPDATE: ‘Ghosts’ patrol Indonesian streets; Kerala on its way to win battle

‘Ghosts’ patrol in Indonesia to keep locals indoors

Kepuh village in Indonesia has been haunted by ghosts of late, as mysterious white figures jump out at unsuspecting passersby.

The village on Java island has deployed a cast of “ghosts” to patrol the streets, hoping that age-old superstition will keep people indoors and safely away from the coronavirus.

“We wanted to be different and create a deterrent effect because ‘pocong’ are spooky and scary,” said AnjarPancaningtyas, head of a village youth group that coordinated with the police on the unconventional initiative to promote social distancing as the coronavirus spreads.

Known as “pocong”, these creatures represent the trapped souls of the dead in Indonesian folklore. The ghostly figures are typically wrapped in white shrouds with powdered faces and kohl-rimmed eyes.

President Joko Widodo has resisted a national lockdown to curb the coronavirus, instead urging people to practise social distancing and good hygiene.

Nagaland records first COVID-19 case

Nagaland recorded its first case of Covid-19 with a patient admitted in Assam’s Guwahati testing positive for the coronavirus on Sunday.

Informing about the same, Assam health minister HimantaBiswaSarma, tweeted, “A private hospital in Dimapur, Nagaland referred a patient to Guwahati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) after he was found with symptoms of Covid-19. He has tested positive and is undergoing treatment.”

According to health officials in Assam, the patient is a resident of Dimapur and was referred directly from Nagaland. He was first admitted in a private hospital in Dimapur and when he showed symptoms for Covid-19 he was sent to GMCH.

“Unfortunately, one person from Dimapur has tested positive for Covid-19 and is under treatment at GMCH at Guwahati. Anyone who came in contact with the person will be immediately quarantined, also certain locations will be sealed for general safety,”Nagaland’s health minister S PangnyuPhom tweeted.

Meghalaya now remains the only state in the northeast which is yet to record any Covid-19 positive case.

Kerala on its way to win battle against Corona

Of all of India’s states, Kerala is on its way to win the fight against the novel coronavirus. As things stand, there’s a clear indication of a flattening of the infection curve in the state.

The number of fresh cases has fallen to the least in the country and the number of cured patients is escalating every day.

Efforts that paid off well for the state include aggressive testing, intense contact tracing, instituting a longer quarantine, building thousands of shelters for migrant workers stranded by the sudden nationwide shutdown and distributing millions of cooked meals to those in need.

On Sunday, only two fresh Covid-19 cases were reported form the state, the least number in the past few weeks. On the same day, 36 patients recovered and emerged from quarantine.

The state of 35 million people is already being touted internationally as a model for fighting Covid-19.