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  • Colleges To Reopen Starting August, Says University Grants Commission

    New Delhi: College sessions will begin in August for current students and September for new ones, the University Grants Commission said on Wednesday. Schools and colleges have been closed across the country since last month amid the coronavirus pandemic.

    Detailing the guidelines for examinations and academic calendar for the universities in view of the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent lockdown, the commission said the exams for final semester students will be conducted in July.

    “Intermediate students will be graded based on internal assessment of the present and previous semester. In states where the COVID-19 situation has normalised, there will be exams in the month of July. For terminal semester students, exams will be held in July,” the UGC said.

    “Universities may follow a six-day week pattern and devise proforma to record travel or stay history of staff and students for the lockdown period. Extension of six months will be granted to MPhil, PhD students and viva-voice be conducted through video conference,” it added.
    The commission clarified that the guidelines are advisory in nature and universities may chalk out their own plan taking into consideration issues pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic. (NDTV)

  • Only asymptomatic persons stranded across country to be allowed to proceed for homes: GoI

    All persons to be screened at source, kept under home quarantine

    Srinagar: The government of India Wednesday ordered to all the states and union territories to facilitate inter-state movement of stranded people including migrant labourers, students and other workers. However, it claimed that all the persons will be medically screened at source and destination who would later be kept under home quarantine as per the guidelines.

    An order available with the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), issued by the Ministry Of Home Affairs, stated that the transportation of asymptomatic people stranded in parts of country will be allowed and all the persons will have to be examined by local medical authority.

    As per official figures over twenty five thousand people including, labourers, students, pilgrims and others from union territory of Jammu and Kashmir who made despite appeals to government in recent days are stranded in parts of India due to lockdown issued in wake of the pandemic coronavirus throughout the nation to contain the spread of deadly virus.

    Pertinently, due to lockdown migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students and other persons are stranded at different places. They would be allowed as per the MHA advisory.

    According to the order issued by MHA it has asked all the states and union territories to designate nodal authorities and develop standard protocols for receiving and sending such stranded persons. The nodal officer shall also register the stranded with their state/UTs.

    The order says in case a group of stranded person wish to move between one state/UT to other state/UT, the sending and receiving states may consult each other and mutually agree to movement by road. The moving persons would be screened and found asymptomatic would be allowed to move—(KNO)

  • Amid Lockdown, J&K records 16 cases of rape, 64 incidents of molestation

    HC directs Govt to inform it about steps for addressing violence against senior citizens, children and disabled

    Srinagar: The Jammu & Kashmir Government has informed the High Court that 16 cases of rape and 64 incidents of molestation were reported during the lockdown period in the Union Territory.

    According to report, available with the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), submitted by the Social Welfare department,16 cases of rape, 64 cases of molestation and one case of eve teasing have been reported in Jammu and Kashmir during the lockdown period.

    As many as 1314 calls have been received from the affected persons on the emergency number 181 from 24th March, 2020 to 24th April, 2020, out of which 65 are related to violence against women, the government submitted.

    The remaining 956 calls were reported by migrant labourers, who were in distress on account of the lockdown, it further said.

    As per the government, Rs 10 lakh for each district of UT of J&K has been sanctioned out of SDRF fund for COVID-19 containment for victims of domestic violence for providing temporary accommodation, food clothing, medical care etc.

    “Additionally, the department of Disaster Management, Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction (DMRR) Government of J&K has issued directions to all the Deputy Commissioner for designating 10 beds in each District Quarantine Centre exclusively and accessible for victims of domestic violence in the J&K,” the High Court order reveals.

    The High Court has directed the government to consider notifying appropriate spaces so that women in difficulty have easy access to them. “Women in distress would not have easy access to the Anganwadi Workers. Ease of access has to be a primary concern for notifying an authority, especially in the urban areas.

    It may not be correct that women as a rule would be uncomfortable in making a complaint against the violence to male members of the society. It is essential for the Social Welfare Department to consider ease of access of the women in distress, as a basis for notifying the authority,” a bench comprising Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Rajnesh Oswal observed.

    “So far as designation of informal safe spaces for women for reporting domestic violence/abuse without alerting the perpetrators is concerned, the Social Welfare Department has informed that it has notified Anganwadi Workers for the reason that women/complainants would not be comfortable in expressing their personal issues with the male members of the society.

    We had cited the example of grocery stores and pharmacies in foreign countries being notified as such safe spaces for the reason that every family is accessing grocery stores and pharmacies even in the lock down period,” it further observed.

    The Court also directed the department of Social Welfare and member State Legal Services Authority examine the requirements and steps necessary to mitigate the complaints and difficulties of victims of elderly abuse; child violence; violence against disabled and transgenders in the UTs of Jammu and Kashmir as well as Ladakh.

    “A report of measures in place; steps under way and those contemplated regarding them be placed before us before the next date of hearing,” the Court directed—(KNO)

  • Non performing Doctors aghast with me, says Principal SKIMS Bemina College

    SRINAGAR: Principal SKIMS Bemina College Dr Riyaz Ahmad Untoo Wednesday said “non performing” doctors of the hospital were aghast with him.

    Some doctors at SKIMS Medical College Bemina Wednesday protested against hospital administration seeking “standard” personal protective equipment. The doctors of Gynecology Department have said they can’t perform surgeries without proper protective gear.

    While, Principal SKIMS College Bemina Dr Riyaz Ahmad Untoo said they provide proper protective gear to doctors. “The hospital administration is providing 90 GSM PPE kits to doctors. Still there are some who don’t want to work. Some people are spreading misinformation that doctors are not provided protective gear which is baseless. Some non performing doctors are aghast with me,” Dr Untoo told news agency KINS.

    As per the details, there are 20 doctors in the Gynecology Department of SKIMS Medical College Bemina. Among them seven are faculty members, eight senior residents and five PGs.

    Surprisingly, the Gynecology Department with a team of around 20 doctors have conducted just one surgery of delivery since March 20.
    “Despite a huge pressure on other hospitals like Lalladed, JLNM hospitals, the Gynecology Department of SKIMS Bemina Medical College has conducted one surgery during COVID period. We fail to understand for what they have been appointed here,” an official told news agency KINS.

    The official said the doctors are claiming that they are not provided proper protective gear and are at the risk to get exposed. “SKIMS Bemina has same PPE which doctors use in other hospitals. If they were not provided proper PPE then how did they (SKIMS Bemina doctors) conduct surgery recently on a pregnant lady,” the official added.

    While Dr Riyaz also admitted that Gynecology Department of the hospital has conducted one delivery surgery during the COVID period.(KINS)

  • Less than 3% coronavirus patients need ventilator support, J&K’s recovery percentage better than national average

    Srinagar, April 29: Amid surge in COVID-19 cases, less than three percent patients needed the ventilator support in Jammu and Kashmir and the recovery percentage of the Union Territory is better than national average.

    Over 580 people have been tested positive for coronavirus in Jammu and Kashmir. However, only around three percent patients needed ventilator support.

    “People should not worry Kashmir over shortage of ventilators. Only critical care patients need the ventilator support,” an official of Health Department told news agency KINS.

    Ventilators are required for COVID-19 patients who develop acute respiratory distress syndrome when the lungs are filled with fluids that make it difficult to breath.

    “But we needed ventilator for very less patients which are a good sign for J&K. A ventilator is used when lungs are filled with fluid. Such patients find it very difficult to be oxygenated in a normal way,” the official said.
    There are apprehensions among people as there are around 230 ventilators in Jammu and Kashmir.

    Government has said they have ordered 400 more ventilators.
    “Most of the ventilators are occupied by patients suffering from other ailments. But very less people needed ventilator support so far,” a doctor at SKIMS Sours said.

    Till Tuesday evening, over 566 people were infected by coronavirus in Jammu and Kashmir with eight deaths which makes around 1.41% death rate.

    Around 170 people have recovered. J&K recovery percentage is 30 percent more than the national average which stands at 23%.

    Medical Superintendent SKIMS Soura Dr Farooq Ahmad Jan said people should not panic and patients get recover.

    “Very less percentage of people needs ventilator support. Even people with mild symptoms are recovering on their own,” he added.

    Director, SKIMS Dr. A G Ahanger Tuesday said that there are 24 Covid positive cases undergoing treatment at the hospital while 238 such patients have been discharged, so far.

    “SKIMS has an efficient and dedicated team of medicos, para medicos and other staff for effective handling of COVID-19 cases besides it has dedicated four levels of isolation facility for treatment of Corona patients,” he informed while elaborating on measures being taken up by the Institute to deal with patients of this dreaded virus.

    “Since the outbreak of pandemic, we have dedicated six ventilators for such patients besides keeping ready around 30 bedded facilities for various levels of isolation 1, 2, 3, and 4 depending upon the severity of the disease,” the Director said.

    He said that the Institute has 36 ventilators apart from the ventilators exclusively dedicated for covid cases.
    He said that they have purchased around 20 more transport ventilators and are getting three more from a voluntary organisation who are donating as a matter of charity to do their bit of contribution at the society level. (KINS)

  • Death of Covid-19 woman, forced police to volunteer themselves for a role they never did before in Srinagar

    Srinagar: The Covid-19 pandemic has added to the responsibilities of Jammu and Kashmir police with those deployed in Srinagar facing extra burden of dealing with the issues they never confronted before.

    Srinagar, the city of 1.5 million is seeing police in a “new avatar.” From enforcing lockdown to checking the prices of essential commodities, arresting burglars, to preventing the drug abuse, the police has now taken an active role in the burial of those who die of Covid-19 pandemic.

    On Tuesday, the death of elderly woman in Rainawari area of old Srinagar, forced police to volunteer themselves for a role they never did before in Srinagar. It was all about digging the grave for the Covid victim, the elderly woman who died in Chest disease hospital, a day after she was tested positive.

    Since almost all the family members of the deceased woman were under hospital quarantine, the police moved a step ahead and dug a grave at Srinagar’s largest graveyard Malkhah, themselves.

    A picture that went viral on the social media showed policemen digging a grave for the deceased woman from Rainawari.

    “Our boys volunteered for it and dug the grave,” one of the top police officials told KINS. A doctor in a Srinagar hospital told news agency KINS that almost all the family members of the deceased woman were under quarantine and none of them could participate in the funeral or burial of the woman, barring few relatives.

    “It is not that family refused to take the body of the woman. Since all of them were under quarantine, they couldn’t participate in her funeral. The neighbours of the woman were supposed to stay indoors as per WHO guidelines,” he said.

    Police help for the burial of the woman came at a time when police men especially those deployed in Srinagar district, are facing tremendous workload given the fact that they are enforcing lockdown on streets amid fasting, arresting the violators of lockdown and also maintaining law and order.

    The police men also support health departments screening drive and go along with the teams of doctors to ensure door to door surveys and contact tracing is done in a hassle free manner.

    In all this, burial of Covid-19 victim was an extraordinary task done by the police for which locals of Rainawari and the relatives of the woman were all praise for. “This is really a human gesture and we are thankful to police for performing last rites including digging of the grave for the woman,” locals of Rainawari said.(KINS)

  • GDP report to show a damaged U.S. economy sliding into recession

    There is fear that the coronavirus could flare up again after the economy is re-opened, forcing reopened businesses to shut down again.

    AP

    The U.S. economy began 2020 riding the crest of a record-long expansion with every expectation that its 11th year of growth would not be its last.

    Then the economy screeched to a sudden halt. And now it’s in free-fall.

    On Wednesday, the government will offer a glimpse of how dark the picture has grown and how much worse it could get as the coronavirus pandemic inflicts ruinous damage. The Commerce Department is expected to estimate that the gross domestic product, the broadest gauge of the economy, shrank at an annual rate of 5% or more in the January-March quarter.

    That would be the sharpest quarterly drop in GDP since the Great Recession, which ended in 2009. And it would be the first quarterly contraction in six years.

    And yet forecasters say that will be only a precursor of a far grimmer GDP report to come for the current April-June quarter, when business shutdowns and layoffs have struck with devastating force. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that GDP will plunge in the current quarter by a 40% annual rate. That would be, by a breathtaking margin, the bleakest quarter since such records were first compiled in 1947.

    In just a few weeks, businesses across the country have shut down and laid off tens of millions of workers. Factories and stores are shuttered. Home sales are falling. Households are slashing spending. Consumer confidence is sinking.

    As the economy slides into what looks like a severe recession, some economists are holding out hope that a recovery will arrive quickly and robustly once the health crisis has been solved – what some call a V-shaped recovery. Increasingly, though, analysts say they think the economy will struggle to regain its momentum even after the viral outbreak has subsided.

    Many Americans, they suggest, could remain too fearful to travel, shop at stores or visit restaurants or movie theaters anywhere near as much as they used to. In addition, local and state officials may continue to limit, for health reasons, how many people may congregate in such places at any one time, thereby making it difficult for many businesses to survive. It’s why some economists say the damage from the downturn could persist far longer than some may assume.

    “The recession will be worse than the one we went through from 2007 to 2009,” said Sung Won Sohn, economics and business professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, referring to the downturn that came to be called the Great Recession because it was the worst slump since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

    There is also fear that the coronavirus could flare up again after the economy is re-opened, forcing reopened businesses to shut down again.

    “The virus has done a lot of damage to the economy, and there is just so much uncertainty now,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

    Zandi said he thought the economy could resume its growth in the July-September quarter before faltering in the final quarter of 2020 and then regaining its footing on a sustained basis in mid-2021 – assuming that a coronavirus vaccine is ready for use by then.

    “I would characterize this period as going through quicksand until we get a vaccine,” Zandi said.

    The Trump administration takes a rosier view. President Donald Trump told reporters this week that he expects a “big rise” in GDP in the third quarter, followed by an “incredible fourth quarter, and you’re going to have an incredible next year.”

    The president is predicating his re-election campaign on the argument that he built a powerful economy over the past three years and can do so again after the health crisis has been resolved.

  • COVID-19 cases in U.S. crosses 1 million-mark; death toll exceeds American fatalities in Vietnam War

    According to the U.S. National Archives, 58,220 American soldiers died in the Vietnam conflict, which began in 1955 and ended in 1975.

    PTI

    The number of people infected by the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. crossed the one million-mark on Tuesday, while the fatalities spiked to over 58,300, exceeding the number of American soldiers who lost their lives in the two-decade-long Vietnam War.

    According to the U.S. National Archives, 58,220 American soldiers died in the Vietnam conflict, which began in 1955 and ended in 1975.

    The U.S. became the first country in the world to have more than one million cases of coronavirus. It accounts for nearly one-third of the 3.1 million cases globally.

    With 58,355 deaths so far, the U.S. also accounts for one-fourth of the over 213,000 global fatalities.

    “We continue to pray for the victims as well as for those Americans who are grieving their lost ones and their loved ones. There’s never been anything like this. We suffer with one heart but we will prevail. We are coming back, and we’re coming back strong,” U.S. President Donald Trump said at the White House during his remarks on the Paycheck Protection Programme.

    “Now that our experts believe the worst days of the pandemic are behind us, Americans are looking forward to the safe and rapid reopening of our country, he said.

    “Throughout this ordeal, millions of hard-working Americans have been asked to really make tremendous, tremendous sacrifices. It is sacrifices like nobody thought would even be possible; nobody thought we would ever be talking about something like this,” Mr. Trump said.

    Meanwhile, several States have initiated the process to reopen their economies. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom outlined the phased reopening of his State.

    “We are not going back to the way things were until we get to immunity or a vaccine. We will base reopening plans on facts and data, not on ideology. Not what we want. Not what we hope,” he told reporters.

    More than 1,800 people have died due to the coronavirus in California so far. Schools and colleges, Mr. Newsom said, could start in July-August.

    California and Washington were among the first two states to impose stay-at-home order. Now more than 95% of the country’s 330 million population are under stay-at-home order.

    Texas Governor Greg Abbott has also announced first phase reopening of the State. Tennessee on Monday allowed reopening of restaurants and later this week retail outlets could resume their businesses.

    Pennsylvania has announced three-phase reopening of the state beginning May 3.

    States like South Carolina, Oregon, Oklahoma, Ohio, have announced phased reopening of their economies. The state of Utah on Tuesday announced relax restrictions and offered a mask to its residents.

    In New York — the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. — non-essential businesses are ordered to stay closed till May 15. New York along with other states, including New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, have announced to coordinate reopening.

    Responding to questions, Mr. Trump said the U.S. has done more testing that any other country in the world.

    “We’re doing more testing than any other country in the world by far…So, we’re going to show more cases because we’re doing much, much more testing, double than anybody else, he said.

    Mr Trump said he relied on experts, who apparently went wrong on this.

    “We were listening to experts and we always will listen to experts. But, the experts got it wrong. A lot of people got it wrong. And, a lot of people had no idea it would be this serious,” he said.

    “I listened to experts. I’ll tell you what. I did something that the experts thought I shouldn’t have done. I closed down our country and our borders. I did a ban on China from coming in, other than US citizens, and we did very strong checks on even our US citizens,” Mr. Trump asserted.

    The United States, he said, is opening up again. “I think it’s going to be very, very successful. I think that third quarter, it’s obviously a transition quarter, but I think it’s going to be okay, maybe better than okay. Then I think fourth-quarter will be great and I think next year is going to be a tremendous year for this country,” Mr. Trump said.

  • 16 More Test Positive, J&K’s Covid-19 Tally Mounts To 581

    Srinagar: Sixteen more people have tested positive of the novel coronavirus in Kashmir, taking the number of the Covid-19 patients in J&K to 581.

    Official sources told GNS that among them, six were confirmed at Viral Diagnostic Lab of SKIMS Soura and include four from Budgam and one each from Baramulla and Kulgam districts.

    Bulk of the cases, 10 were confirmed at the COVID-19 testing laboratory at Chest Disease Hospital, Dalgate and include nine from Anantnag District and one from Srinagar.

    As per the official data, there are now 581 cases in Jammu and Kashmir and 58 of them are in Jammu division. (GNS)

  • Coronavirus | Punjab to extend lockdown for two more weeks

    PTI

    Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday said curfew would continue in the State for another two weeks, after May 3 amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

    Limited lifting of the lockdown restrictions will start from tomorrow, April 30, in the non-red zones.

    Relaxation in curfew will be given for four hours during the day between 7am till 11am.