New Delhi: India’s Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, following which the defence ministry carried out a massive contact-tracing exercise, official sources said.
Kumar’s condition is stable and he is currently under home-quarantine, they said.
At least 35 officials working at the ministry’s headquarters in South Block in the Raisina Hills have been sent on home quarantine after reports of Kumar testing positive for the infection emerged on Wednesday morning.
There was no official comment on Kumar’s health condition. The defence ministry spokesperson refused to comment on the issue.
It is learnt that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh did not attend office as part of a precautionary measure.
The offices of the defence minister, the defence secretary, the Army Chief and the Navy Chief are on the first floor of the South Block.
The sources said all laid down protocols on contact-tracing and quarantining of people are being scrupulously followed.
Villages, towns identified by security forces to get priority.
To ramp up infrastructure along the China border, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has decided to spend 10% funds of a Centrally sponsored scheme only on border projects in Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarkhand and Sikkim.
The Border Area Development Programme (BADP) has been allocated ₹784 crore in the 2020-21 fiscal and the money is distributed to the border States and Union Territories (UTs) depending on various criteria such as the length of the international border and population. In 2019-20, ₹825 crore was granted for the scheme.
According to the new guidelines approved by Union Home Minister Amit Shah effective April 1, the projects for developing strategically important villages and towns in border areas that have been identified by the border guarding forces, will be given priority. Around ₹78.4 crore has been parked for projects in areas inhabited along the 3,488 km China border.
Construction of roads, bridges, culverts, primary schools, health infrastructure, playfields, irrigation works, mini-stadiums, indoor courts for basketball, badminton and table tennis can be undertaken within 10 km of the border from the BADP funds.
The BADP, initially started in 1980 for the western border, has over the years expanded to cover 396 blocks of 111 border districts in 16 States and two UTs.
The new BADP guidelines said, “10% of the total allocated funds will be additionally allocated to the States/UTs abutting Indo-China border [Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Sikkim and Uttarakhand] for taking up works/projects in the districts abutting Indo-China border.”
It said that 10% funds would be reserved as an incentive for the better performing States. Out of the remaining ₹638.2 crore, the northeastern States- Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim would get –₹255.28 crore or 40% of the remaining 80% funds. Around ₹382.9 crore or 60% funds would be allocated to Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal and Union Territories Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the guidelines said.
Infrastructure creation
The creation of infrastructure “would help integrate these areas with the hinterland, create a positive perception of care by the country and encourage people to stay on in the border areas leading to safe and secure borders,” the MHA said.
Forces such as the Border Security Force (BSF), deployed along the Bangladesh and Pakistan borders; the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) on the China border; the Sashastra Seema Bal along the Nepal border; and the Assam Rifles stationed along the Myanmar border would provide independent feedback on the projects in the blocks concerned and may be tasked to conduct social audit of the works, it stated.
No NGO or private institution could be hired for infrastructure related work, the guidelines said.
Rahul Gandhi asked the government to come clean on the border standoff with China and tell the country what exactly is happening “as its silence is fuelling speculation and uncertainty”.
Amid a border standoff with China, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday asked the government to make it clear whether or not Chinese soldiers have entered India.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had on Tuesday said that there was a “sizeable number” of Chinese troops alon the Line of Actual Control and that the government has taken all necessary steps to deal with the situation.
Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday took to Twitter to ask, “Can GOI (Government of India) please confirm that no Chinese soldiers have entered India (sic).”
He also shared a report about India and China holding a top-level military meet on June 6 in a bid to resolve the troops standoff in eastern Ladakh.
Gandhi asked the government to come clean on the border standoff with China and tell the country what exactly is happening “as its silence is fuelling speculation and uncertainty”.
“The government’s silence about the border situation with China is fuelling massive speculation and uncertainty at a time of crisis,” he said earlier.
The Congress has asked the government to come clean on the border standoff and take all political parties and the country into confidence over restoration of the status quo ante on the border with China.
Troops of India and China were engaged in a major standoff for over three weeks in Pangong Tso, Galwan Valley, Demchok and Daulat Beg Oldie in eastern Ladakh, in what is turning out to be the biggest confrontation between the two countries after the Doklam episode in 2017.
The government has been maintaining that talks at military and diplomatic levels are on to resolve the row.
Google was sued on Tuesday in a proposed class action accusing the internet search company of illegally invading the privacy of millions of users by pervasively tracking their internet use through browsers set in “private” mode.
The lawsuit seeks at least $5 billion, accusing the Alphabet Inc unit of surreptitiously collecting information about what people view online and where they browse, despite their using what Google calls Incognito mode.
According to the complaint filed in the federal court in San Jose, California, Google gathers data through Google Analytics, Google Ad Manager and other applications and website plug-ins, including smartphone apps, regardless of whether users click on Google-supported ads.
This helps Google learn about users’ friends, hobbies, favorite foods, shopping habits, and even the “most intimate and potentially embarrassing things” they search for online, the complaint said.
‘Unauthorised data collection’
Google “cannot continue to engage in the covert and unauthorised data collection from virtually every American with a computer or phone,” the complaint said.
Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesman, said the Mountain View, California-based company will defend itself vigorously against the claims.
“As we clearly state each time you open a new incognito tab, websites might be able to collect information about your browsing activity,” he said.
While users may view private browsing as a safe haven from watchful eyes, computer security researchers have long raised concern that Google and rivals might augment user profiles by tracking people’s identities across different browsing modes, combining data from private and ordinary internet surfing.
The complaint said the proposed class likely includes ”millions” of Google users who since June 1, 2016 browsed the internet in “private” mode.
It seeks at least $5,000 of damages per user for violations of federal wiretapping and California privacy laws.
“Bharat and India are both names given in the Constitution. India is already called ‘Bharat’ in the Constitution”, sayds CJI
The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered that a plea to change India’s name exclusively to ‘Bharat’ be converted into a representation and forwarded to the Union government for an appropriate decision.
“Bharat and India are both names given in the Constitution. India is already called ‘Bharat’ in the Constitution”, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad A. Bobde orally said in a virtual court hearing.
The petitioner, Namah, through his counsel, said ‘India’ is a name of foreign origin. The name can be traced back to the Greek term ‘Indica’.
Counsel said, “The word ‘Bharat’ is closely associated to our Freedom Struggle. The cry was ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’.”
The court said the petition be transformed into a representation and forwarded to the ministries, primarily the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The petition seeks an amendment to Article 1 of the Constitution, which says “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States…”. It wants ‘India’ to be struck off from the Article.
“This will ensure citizens of this country to get over the colonial past and instil a sense of pride in our nationality. Will also justify the hard fought freedom by our freedom fighters”, it said.
2016 petition
The apex court had dismissed a similar petition in 2016. Then CJI T.S. Thakur orally remarked that every Indian had the right to choose between calling his country ‘Bharat’ or ‘India’ and the Supreme Court had no business to either dictate or decide for a citizen what he should call his country.
“If you want to call this country Bharat, go right ahead and call it Bharat. If somebody chooses to call this country India, let him call it India. We will not interfere,” he had said.
The Chinese military in Tibet has held night-time high-altitude ‘infiltration exercises behind enemy lines,’ says the Communist Party-run Global Times
China’s official media reported on Wednesday that the Chinese military in Tibet has held night-time high-altitude “infiltration exercises behind enemy lines” amid on-going border tensions with India.
The Communist Party-run Global Times reported that the “PLA Tibet Military Command recently sent troops to a high-altitude region at an elevation of 4,700 metres at night for infiltration exercises behind enemy lines and tested their combat capability under a harsh environment.”
Reports indicated that the drills were held in the Tanggula Mountains, which is not close to the border but in the central Tibetan plateau, near the eastern border of Tibet and Qinghai province.
The newspaper’s report noted, “China and India share borders at the high-altitude area, and incidents have recently occurred between the two countries’ troops, and both sides reportedly reinforced deployments.”
On Tuesday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh acknowledged for the first time that China had moved troops in “significant numbers” in the ongoing standoff at the Line of Actual Control (LAC). He said both sides would hold talks on June 6 to resolve the tensions.
Stand-offs and heavy deployments have been reported in at least four locations along the LAC in both Ladakh and Sikkim. Talks held on Tuesday at the Major General level appeared to be inconclusive.
While the Chinese media has been largely silent on the tensions in a contrast from the 2017 Doklam stand-off, there has been similar signalling from the PLA as was the case three years ago, such as on military exercises and drills held near the border.
The Global Times reported on the drill citing the official China Central Television, the State-run broadcaster.
The report said: “At 1.00 a.m. at an undisclosed date, a PLA scout unit began to mobilise toward its target in the Tanggula Mountains. During the march, vehicles turned off their lights and used night vision devices to avoid hostile drone reconnaissance. After encountering defensive obstacles built by the enemy, the scouts sent drones and dropped explosives to clear them. They engaged in combat when approaching the target, for which they sent a sniper unit to crack enemy spotlights and a fire strike team to destroy enemy light armoured vehicles with anti-tank rockets. After neutralising the defences, the scout unit successfully launched the final assault on the enemy headquarters, in which commanders used a vehicle-mounted infrared reconnaissance system and guided the troops to lock in on targets and deliver fire strikes.”
Ma Qian, commander of the scout battalion involved in the drills, told CCTV “more than 2,000 munitions, including mortar shells, rifle grenades and rockets were fired during the mock battle” and “the exercises not only tested the results of the troops’ training with newly commissioned equipment, but also placed them in an extremely complicated situation”.
The Global Times quoted “a retired PLA officer who was deployed in high-altitude regions” of Tibet as saying “infiltrating behind enemy lines and launching an attack at a hostile command centre at night can effectively win a small-scale conflict with only one battle” and that “the surprise factor would play a significant role.”
Jalna: Police on Tuesday filed a case against a COVID-19-infected man for violating home quarantine rules and attending a marriage function here in central Maharashtra, an official said.
According to Sadar Bazar police inspector Sanjay Deshmukh, on May 27 an employee of a private hospital here tested positive for coronavirus and his family members, including the accused, were put under home quarantine.
On May 29, his throat swab was taken for testing and the same day, he violated home quarantine norms and attended a marriage function at Kranti Nagar, Deshmukh said.
The matter came to light when people spotted him with home quarantine stamp on his hand and complained to officials concerned, the inspector said.
Later, his swab sample tested positive for COVID-19, he said.
Following this, the police registered a case against him under the Disaster Management Act and relevant sections of other laws, Deshmukh said.
Health workers are tracing people who came in contact with the infected man, he said.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said India will definitely get its economic growth back as the government continues to pursue various reforms
Speaking at industry association CII’s annual session, he said the government has taken tough steps to fight the coronavirus pandemic and has also taken care of the economy
“On the one hand we have to safe lives of our people and on the other hand we have to stabilise the economy and speed up the economy,” he said
“Yes, we will definitely get our growth back,” he asserted
He said he gets the confidence from farmers, small businesses and entrepreneurs for getting the economic growth back
“Corona may have slowed our speed (of growth) but India has now moved ahead from lockdown with the phase one of unlock. Unlock Phase-1 has reopened a large part of the economy,” he said
He said intent, inclusion, investment, infrastructure and innovation are crucial for India to revert back to a high-growth trajectory
“For us, reforms are not any random or scattered decisions. For us reforms are systemic, planned, integrated, inter-connected and futuristic process,” he said
He further noted that “for us reforms mean courage to take decisions and taking them to logical conclusion.
Important dialogue between senior military leaders on June 6, he says
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday acknowledged that China had moved troops in “significant numbers” in the ongoing stand-off at the Line of Actual Control (LAC). There was an important dialogue between the two countries scheduled on June 6 to resolve the issue, he stated.
Separately, sources said a dialogue was held on Tuesday at the Major General level.
“It is true that there have been differences on the border at this time. A significant number of Chinese troops have come in. India too has done what it should,” Mr. Singh told CNN News18. “As of now, negotiations are going on at the military level. On June 6, there will be talks between senior military officers. I discussed about this with the Army Chief today,” he said.
Dialogue between military commanders had been going on daily, sources said, including at the level of Major Generals and on Tuesday too. No concrete resolution had been achieved, it had been learnt and the talks would continue, the sources said.
Mr. Singh observed that China should also think seriously in this regard so that the issue was resolved completely. Referring to the differences in perception between the two countries on the alignment of the LAC, he said there was something constantly going on between India and China regarding the border. “There will hardly be a year when there is no face-off on the border between both the Indian Army and the Chinese Army,” he said. Sometime there had been such tensions that firearms had been snatched, he noted.
Specifically asked to comment on reports of Chinese troops moving inside Indian territory, he said without getting into specifics, “India will not infringe on anyone’s sovereignty and at the same time India will let not anyone infringe on its sovereignty.”
For close to a month now, Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged in stand-offs at several locations along the LAC after Chinese troops moved into Indian territory at Pangong Tso, Galwan Nalah, Hot Springs in eastern Ladakh and Naku La in Sikkim. Chinese troops have set up tents and brought in equipment inside at some places while also building up presence close to Indian positions on their side of the border.
Mr. Singh later said on Twitter quoting the interview that India’s negotiation with China was on and so he “would not like to express doubts.” “If the issue is resolved through dialogue then what else can be a good thing,” he said and added that the ‘forehead of India’ would not bend under any circumstances.
New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said
it is criminal on the part of the government not to give immediate cash support to the MSMEs, which are closing down.
“11 crore Indians are employed by MSMEs. 1/3rd of them are closing down permanently. It’s criminal for GOI not to give them cash support immediately,” he said on Twitter.
Gandhi has been calling for immediate financial support to the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the country, which employ a large number of people, saying it has been the hardest hit sector by the coronavirus-induced nationwide lockdown.
He has also called for a financial package for the MSMEs.