Category: Union Territory

Centre repeals law providing these facilities

Srinagar, April 01: In a major development, the Government of India has scrapped a legal provision providing rent-free accommodation and other facilities to former chief ministers of Jammu & Kashmir.

According to wire service—Kashmir News Observer(KNO) , Centre has repealed section 3-C of the State Legislature Members’ Pension Act, 1984 under which former CMs of J&K were entitled to different privileges and perks.

As per KNO, under the law, former CMs were entitled to rent-free furnished accommodation, expenditure to the limit of Rs 35,000 per annum for furnishing of the residential accommodation, free telephone calls up to the value of Rs 48,000 per annum, free electricity to the extent of Rs 1500 per month ,car, petrol, medical facilities, driver etc.

They were also entitled to one personnel assistant, one special assistant and two peons. “Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, a member who is entitled to pension under this Act and who has served as Chief Minister of the State, shall be entitled to car, petrol, medical facilities, driver, rent-free furnished accommodation, expenditure to the limit of Rs 35,000 per annum for furnishing of the residential accommodation, free telephone calls up to the value of Rs

48,000 per annum, free electricity to the extent of Rs 1500 per month etc,” reads section 3( C) of the law which was deleted by the Centre last night.

The law has been deleted through Jammu & Kashmir Reorganization( adaptation of state laws )Order-2020.

The move comes months after J&K Law Commission had recommended repeal of the legal provisions providing facilities to former CMs, saying these provisions “violate the constitutional principles of equality” and are “arbitrary and not in consonance with any scheme or law”—(KNO)

Jammu/Kathua, March 31 After chaos at Lakhanpur — the gateway to Jammu and Kashmir — and limited facilities of quarantine in Kathua town, the UT administration has now decided to start shifting all the people from the Kashmir valley who are being quarantined in Kathua and Samba districts to their respective districts in government-owned SRTC buses from tomorrow. According to the official sources, there are around 4,000 persons, including women and children, who have crossed into J&K via Lakhanpur since March 23, being currently quarantined at different centres established at Samba and Kathua districts. “The number of people hailing from different districts of the Kashmir valley, who are being quarantined in Samba district, is around 2,500, while this number is more than 1,400 in Kathua town. The administration has decided to shift them to their respective districts in batches in SRTC buses. This process was to begin today but could not take place due to closure of the Jammu-Srinagar highway due to landslides,” a senior official told The Tribune. The highway was blocked for traffic due to a landslide at Dalwas village in Ramban district.
To a query, the official said all the persons were yet to complete the mandatory quarantine period of 14 days but the administration in both the districts had screened the people under quarantine thoroughly. “These people will be shifted in phases,” the official said. A total of 39 quarantine centres have been established in Kathua town where over 2,700 persons are being quarantined. Of them, there are 1,415 persons belonging to the Kashmir valley. Pertinently, there was chaos at Lakhanpur due to increasing number of stranded J&K residents who wanted to enter the UT from outside. J&K had sealed its borders with all neighbouring states and Ladakh on March 23 to contain the spread of coronavirus. The people of Kathua town had been demanding the shifting of these people to their respective districts.

The Union Health Ministry has recommended the use of anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine in combination with azithromycin on those severely suffering from COVID-19 who require ICU management.

PTI

In its revised guidelines on the ‘Clinical Management of COVID-19’ issued on Tuesday, the ministry said the drug is presently not recommended for children aged less than 12 and pregnant and lactating women.

“No specific antivirals have been proven to be effective as per currently available data. However, based on the available information (uncontrolled clinical trials), the following drugs may be considered as an offlabel indication in patients with severe disease and requiring ICU management,” the ministry said while recommending the drug combination.

The ministry has removed its earlierrecommendation of the use of anti-HIV drug combinations Lopinavir and Ritonavir on a case-to-case basis depending upon the severity of the condition of a patient suffering from coronavirus infection.

“As per latest clinicaldata available from across the work, Lopinavir and Ritonavir drug combinationwas not found to have significant benefit for patients of COVID-19 so it has been discontinued,” a health ministry officialsaid.

This document is intended for clinicians taking care of hospitalised adult and paediatric patients of COVID19, the guidelines stated.

Best practices for COVID-19 including infection prevention and control (IPC) and optimized supportive care for severely ill patients are considered essential, it said, adding that the document aims to provide clinicians with updated interim guidance on timely, effective and safe supportive management of patients with COVID-19, particularly those who have severe acute respiratory illness and are critically ill.

The guidelines issued by the health ministry also state that COVID-19 patients may have mild, moderate, or severe illness — the latter includes severe pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), sepsis and septic shock.

“Early identification of those with severe manifestations allows for immediate optimised supportive care treatments and safe, rapid admission (or referral) to intensive care unit according to national protocols,” the document states.

The guidelines advise the treating doctors to closely monitor patients with severe acute respiratory infection for signs of clinical deterioration, such as rapidly progressive respiratory failure and sepsis, and apply supportive care interventions immediately.

“Application of timely, effective, and safe supportive therapies is the cornerstone of therapy for patients who develop severe manifestations of COVID-19,” it said.

“Understand the patient’s co-morbid condition to tailor the management of critical illness and appreciate the prognosis. During intensive care management of severe acute respiratory infection, determine which chronic therapies should be continued and which therapies should be stopped temporarily.”

The guidelines also recommend that the patients and their families must be communicated with pro-actively and provided support and prognostic information. They also recommend to medical practitioners to understand the patient’s “values and preferences” regarding life-sustaining interventions.

(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

The definition expands to include those who have “studied for a period of seven years and appeared in class 10th/12th examination in an educational institution located in the UT of J&K.”

Naveed Iqbal | The Indian Express

A person residing in Jammu and Kashmir for at least fifteen years will now be eligible to be a domicile of the union territory, according to the new rule issued by the Centre Tuesday

In the latest gazette notification, Section 3A of the J&K Reorganisation (Adaptation of State Laws) Order 2020, under the J&K civil services (decentralisation and recruitment) Act, has been introduced to define domicile as that “who has resided for a period of fifteen years in the UT of J&K or has studied for a period of seven years and appeared in class 10th/12th examination in an educational institution located in the UT of J&K.”

Before August 5, 35 A of the Constitution (now abrogated) empowered J&K assembly to define a J&K resident, who alone were eligible to apply for jobs or own immovable property.

The definition expands to include “children of those central government officials, all India services officers, officials of PSUs and autonomous body of central government, public sector banks, officials of statutory bodies, officials of central universities and recognised research institutes of central government who have served in Jammu and Kashmir for a total period of ten years or children on parents who fulfil any of the conditions in sections.”

Additionally, persons registered as a migrant by the Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner (Migrants) in the UT of J&K, will also be included in the definition. “Children of such residents of J&K as reside outside UT of J&K in connection with their employment or business or other professional or vocational reasons” but. their parents fulfil any of the conditions provided earlier.

The provisions of the Act authorise the Tehsildar as competent authority for issuing the domicile certificate, as opposed to deputy commissioner or any officer specially notified by the state government by way of a gazette notification in the form of a SRO.

29 state laws have been repealed while 109 have been amended. Section 5A states that no person shall be eligible for appointment to a post carying a pay scale for not more than level 4 “unless he is a domicile of UT of J&K.”

Through the same order, the Centre has repealed the the J&K civil services (special provisions) Act.

(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Tuesday said Muslims should not be blamed for the spread of coronavirus in the country.

He was reacting to netizens’ response to reports that several people who tested positive for COVID19 had attended a congregation of Tablighi Jamat, a Muslim religious organisation, at Nizamuddin in Delhi earlier this month.

“Now the #TablighiJamat will become a convenient excuse for some to vilify Muslims everywhere as if we created & spread #COVID around the world,” Abdullah said in a series of tweets.

“At first glance it would appear the #TablighiJamat were nothing if not irresponsible in the way they went about things but that’s not unique to them. The majority of Muslims in India have heeded government guidelines and advice the same as anyone else,” he added.

Abdullah said those people who were associating the COVID19 with the Tablighi Jamat were more dangerous than any virus.

“People tweeting stuff with hashtags like Tablighi virus are more dangerous than any virus nature could ever conjure up because their minds are sick while their bodies may very well be healthy,” he said.

Over 2,000 delegates, including from Indonesia and Malaysia, attended the congregation from March 1-15, officials said. Police and paramilitary personnel cordoned off a major area in Nizamuddin West while over 200 people were kept in isolation in hospitals after several people who took part in the congregation showed symptoms of coronavirus, officials said on Monday.

Lack of contact, travel history amid spike in cases spur suspicion about transmission

Special Correspondent

As most COVID-19 patients in Indore, where 17 persons tested positive on Tuesday, have no contact or travel history, health workers are grappling to identify the source, indicating the most populous and largest city of Madhya Pradesh may already be witnessing the community transmission stage.

“We are not able to detect the source as such, because there is no person with international travel history who’s tested positive,” said Salil Sakalle, Professor, Community Medicine, Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College, Indore, the only facility testing for the illness in west Madhya Pradesh.

Dr. Sakalle pointed out there were some patients with national travel history. “During travel, they probably might have come in contact [with those infected],” he said.

Indore bears the burden of 44 patients, most residents of congested localities, of the 66 cases in the State. In addition, three persons from the city have succumbed to COVID-19. Besides, eight cases in Jabalpur, six in Ujjain, four in Bhopal, and two each in Shivpuri and Gwalior have been registered.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), community transmission is evidenced by the inability to relate confirmed cases through chains of transmission for a large number of cases, or by increasing positive tests through sentinel samples.

“Coincidently almost all positive cases, including first ones, have come from congested areas, so probably they have done a lot of community transmission,” said Dr. Sakalle. Though pockets have been identified, that doesn’t spell a possible wiping out of the virus locally. “If we are able to contain it in certain pockets and cover all contacts, then maybe we can make it controlled. We have no way to control their [overall] number,” he added.

Aggressive testing in relation to other cities like Bhopal and Jabalpur has yielded more numbers too. Until March 30, the college had tested 261 samples since March 21. “Most cases in the first lot for Indore were those admitted to government and private hospital ICUs whose samples we took to test for acute severe respiratory illnesses when the testing for COVID-19 was restricted to only those with travel history abroad. When the ICMR revised the guidelines, we ran their samples for COVID-19 too, and many tested positive,” explained Dr. Sakalle.

Subsequently, those who had come into contact with these persons tested positive too. “Those who’re dying, are either elderly or have some comorbidities of diabetes or hypertension,” he said.

The city’s cosmopolitan culture, Indore being a transit corridor, the recent political instability in the State and residents not taking the lockdown seriously have all aggravated the outbreak of the illness in Indore, opines Anand Rai, part of the Indore COVID-19 response team.

“There are at least 80-90 flights to Indore per day. It’s the economic hub of Madhya Pradesh unlike Bhopal, and boasts a mix of cultures,” Dr. Rai explained.

The district administration has pulled out all stops, rolling out an odd-even road rationing scheme from March 28 and drawing containment areas within a 3 km radius around the houses of patients. where traffic is prohibited and all residents quarantined. In a spiralling trend, four persons tested positive on Saturday, while seven did on Sunday .

“Still, those staying in clusters, due to low literacy levels refuse to abide by the lockdown as the illness is an invisible enemy,” said Dr. Rai. “There will be 300-400 positive cases in the coming days,” he predicted.

Moreover, Madhya Pradesh was currently combating the disease ‘half-heartedly’ in the absence of a Health or Home Minister in the fledgling BJP government, he asserted, adding that the recent transfers of district Collectors of Indore, Bhopal and Jabalpur had ruffled the administrative machinery.

In addition, the city buttressed a culture of cohesion and commingling which might re,sult in pushing up the numbers, said Ajay Sodani, Professor at an Indore-based college, who has been following the spurt closely. “People think like a community here. Sadly on the janta curfew day, scores of people came out on the streets together to clang thalis and beat drums.”

Furthermore, he said, government officials at times were sending out a wrong message. “They are encouraging people to cover faces with cloth masks. However, it has to be a triple-layer surgical or an N95 mask. These disappeared from the market long ago. The WHO has said that those made of cotton should not be worn in any condition.”

Srinagar, Mar 31 (KNO): Amid the growing scare and fear besides lockdown in view of the spread of COVID-19, two Kashmiris have launched a website to give free medical consultation to patients across valley.

According to wire service-Kashmir News Observer (KNO), two Kashmiris from Srinagar came together to launch the website named “COVID-19 Helping Hand Kashmir” in order to help patients who are confined to their homes due to the lockdown.

As everyone is confined to their home and doctors are tackling the patients of COVID-19, Shakeel Ahmad and Rameez Rashid from Srinagar have come together to provide relief to the patients who are confined to their homes.

Shakeel Ahmad, deputy registrar Board of Technical Education said that as he started this platform many people belonging to different professions came together and at the moment they are working from across the Kashmir valley.

“As everybody is aware of the fact that doctors at present are busy in tackling COVID-19 and there are hundreds of patients who are suffering as they are unable to consult a doctor amid the lockdown,” he said adding that through this initiative they are trying to reach each and every patient who needs immediate medical consultation.

He said that few days back they launched the website after which hundreds of patients registered themselves and they are getting free medical consultation online from the doctors who are also working on volunteer basis.

Rouf Ahmad, who joined the platform from Shopian after the website was launched said the patients are registering their numbers on the

“Doctors who want to give consultations voluntarily can also register themselves on the website. 20 doctors have already registered themselves and are giving free medical advice to the patients,” he said.

Rouf said that besides providing free medical advice they are providing free medicines to the needy persons as well.

“We are thankful to the people who are helping us in this initiative and we are hopeful that people will continue to help us,” Shakeel said—(KNO)

Srinagar, Mar 31 (KNO): The students, who in recent past arrived back from abroad and outside J&K, are finding it tough to appear in the online classes arranged by their concerned universities after country wide lockdown to prevent spread of Covid-19 and the low speed of internet in the J&K UT.

According to wire service—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), students enrolled outside Jammu and Kashmir complained about the slow speed internet for failing to appear in online classes.

Number of students who returned back to their respective destinations in Kashmir said: “ From past couple of days, since our college started online classes stream and department wise for all the students including those living in Jammu and Kashmir, we have always missed to appear in the online classes since our connection gets abruptly down due to low speed”.

They said after getting a video appearance notification from their department they fail to accept the request now even if we accept or join it for some time in less duration they get disconnected, unable to remain connected in absence of high speed internet.

“We are worried about our career after leaving our respective institutions they were informed to be available on WhatsApp, YouTube and for online classes through some medium arranged by university authorities to able to sit in examinations supposed to be held on return,” said a student.

Farkh Inam, one of the students, along with many other students belonging to northern belt of Kashmir complained about the slow speed internet and said, “we fail to understand the lecture due to abrupt cuts in the video call even times the domain holder (One who connects the group call) doesn’t even call us back leaving us midway since when all others outside the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir without any inconvenience get benefitted and prepare for forthcoming examination”.

Authorities have asked us to visualize the lectures on YouTube but the slow speed internet connectivity blemishes whole process leaving them in dark at a time when their mates are studying online and availing the lectures without may hesitation, he said.

A group of students from south Kashmir enrolled at different parts of India and abroad told KNO that days after our regular academics was called off the university authorities initiated online classes and made lectures available on WhatsApp and YouTube official channels but the network connectivity available in Jammu and Kashmir has hit hard our academics making us incompetent in comparison of their classmates residing outside J&K — (KNO)

SRINAGAR, MARCH 31: The world is facing a severe and acute health emergency due to ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic and rigorous measures are being taken to mitigate and contain the transmission of this infection and the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Soura, Srinagar, is trying hard to minimize the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the increase in rate of transmission, the medical advice points toward the curtailment of social contact, which is key to reduce the spread of this deadly infection, Director SKIMS said in a statement, here the other day.

Urging people to adhere to the health advisories and maintain social distancing protocol in all aspects of life- social and religious, Dr. Ahanger said that saving humans from harm is the essence of every religion and in current situation it can be assured by staying home and maintaining WHO protocol.

The statement reads that the SKIMS witnessed a very good and positive development in fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic. The first positive case, an elderly lady with a history of foreign travel and symptomatic was admitted for management of COVID-19 infection, has responded very well to the treatment, and has, in fact, recovered with repeated tests as negative in 24 hours on the 14th day. The patient has progressive recovery and is being shifted to Level-II for further quarantine purpose.

Dr. Ahangar further said that SKIMS continues to bear the brunt of COVID-19 patients both symptomatic and falling in line in the suspected cases under various protocols and till date, the Institute has admitted 133 cases of which 21 have been discharged while 6 positive cases are under treatment. Besides, the UT’s Viral Diagnostic and Research Laboratory (VDRL) has tested 219 samples so far, out of which 8 have been tested positive, while the others are negative. However most of these patients admitted for observation continue to be under surveillance in coordination with the Directorate of Health Services and other Nodal Agencies of Jammu & Kashmir.

In the fight against the Covid-19, the statement said the SKIMS shares the resolve of JK UT’s administration including that of Lt Governor GC Murmu, Advisor, Basser Ahmed Khan, Chief Secretary, B V R Subrahmanyam, Financial Commissioner Health & Medical Education Department, Atal Dulloo, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, Pandurang Kondbarao Pole, Deputy Commissioner Srinagar, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, Principals of SKIMS MC and GMC Srinagar and Director Health Services Kashmir, Dr Samir Matoo and his team members, to save the lives of our people.

The statement reads that due to influx of patients, people is again requested to observe and follow all Government Advisories as well as the instructions from various Health Institutions/ and Agencies with regard to prevention and control of this infection as slow down in infection rate decreases the pressure on health institutions and can go a long way in better management of COVID-19 positive cases.

Preventive measures to reduce the chances of infection include staying home, avoiding crowded places, washing hands with soap and warm water, practicing good respiratory hygiene, avoiding touching the eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands, strictly following official lockdown, avoiding social or religious gatherings, maintaining personal, following cough and sneezing etiquettes, not sharing items of daily items and above all reporting to healthcare agencies in the event of developing symptoms related to COVID-19, especially when there is history of others being in contact of a proven cases of COVID-19 infection or with a travel history to or from an infected area or having been a healthcare worker treating such patients. I would again urge my fellow citizens to be more concerned, careful, staying indoors, stay safe, help others to live without any scare or panic. The updated data about Corona Virus epi