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  • Encounter underway in Shopian

    PTI

    Srinagar: An encounter broke out between security forces and militants in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday, police said.

    Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Reban area of Shopian in South Kashmir this morning after receiving specific information about the presence of militants in the area, a police official said.

    He said the search operation turned into an encounter after militants fired upon a search party of the forces, who retaliated.

    The exchange of fire is underway and further details are awaited.

  • Sonu Sood sends 200 idli vendors back home to Tamil Nadu, they honour him with aarti.

    Sonu Sood sent another 200 migrant workers back to their homes in Tamil Nadu and they expressed their gratitude in a traditional way.

    Actor Sonu Sood is continuing to send migrant workers and labourers back to their homes amid the coronavirus lockdown in the country. He has now sent 200 idli vendors from Tamil Nadu back to their homes from Mumbai, as per an Instagram post by photographer Viral Bhayani.

    Sonu arranged buses for the food vendors to take them home. A few women thanked him by doing an ‘aarti’ of the actor while he accepted their gratitude with joined hands. A video also shows Sonu breaking a coconut in front of the bus for good luck.

    Sonu’s fans were in awe of his kindness and hard work. “This is what people with privileges do for others!!! He has all my respect. I wish him more success! The society needs more of him. Bollywood actors should learn something from him,” read a comment. “His deeds look so genuine unlike others who do it for publicity,” read another comment.

    Also on Saturday, Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat thanked Sonu for sending migrant workers stuck in Mumbai to their home in Uttarakhand by a chartered flight and invited him to visit the hill state when the coronavirus crisis is over.

    Rawat spoke to Sonu on phone to express his gratitude. “Talked to film actor Sonu Sood today on phone to thank him for his humanitarian gesture. He and all religious and social organisations that helped migrants return to their home states have done a commendable job,” Rawat said in a Facebook post.

    After hearing from Rawat, the actor on Twitter said he derived more strength from the chief minister’s words of praise. “It was good to hear from you sir. The simplicity and warmth with which you praised my efforts have given me more strength. I will soon come to Uttarakhand for a darshan of Badri-Kedar and pay a visit to you,” the actor tweeted.

    With inputs from Hindustan Times

  • Online classes only short-term response: Nilekani

    PTI

    The rapid shift to teaching and learning activities online prompted by closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic is only a “short-term response” and we need to fundamentally reimagine schools as a resilient system which can function under continuous turbulence, according to Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani.

    Classroom should not be the only location, teacher the only facilitator and textbook not the only medium, is the roadmap laid by Nilekani for a “resilient” school system while delivering the keynote address at a virtual conference on ‘Future of Schools: Overcoming COVID-19 challenge and beyond’ organsied by Ashoka University.

    “The rapid shift to move everything online, zoom classes, teaching through smart phones, all of this is part of a short-term response which was necessary but not sufficient. We need to fundamentally reimagine schools, build a resilient system strategically detailing how are we going to deal with the turbulence for next few years,” said Nilekani, who is also co-founder of EkStep Foundation.

    The foundation extends learning opportunities to Indian children through a collaborative, universal platform that facilitates creation and consumption of education.

    “A resilient system is something in which we are able to function even when there is turbulence outside, it is like a ship sailing through a stormy sea and resilience has to be thought through. A lot of time has been spent on making things efficient, dealing with things which we could not anticipate,” he added.

  • Encounter breaks out in south Kashmir’s Shopian

    Shopain, 7 June: An encounter between militants and the security forces broke out in Reben area of South Kashmir’s Shopian district.

    Further Details Awaited

  • British pharma giant ‘AstraZeneca’ all set to roll out COVID-19 vaccine in September

    British pharma giant AstraZeneca is “on track” to begin rolling out up to two billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine in September if ongoing trials prove successful, its chief executive said on Friday.

    The company is partnering with Oxford University, which has pioneered the vaccine, and is already manufacturing doses before seeking final regulatory approval once testing concludes in the coming months.

    “So far we’re still on track… we are starting to manufacture this vaccine right now, and we have to have it ready to be used by the time we have the results,” AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot told BBC radio.
    “Our present assumption is that we will have the data by the end of the summer, by August, so in September we should know whether we have an effective vaccine or not.”

    The firm announced this week it had struck agreements with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, and the Serum Institute of India to double production capacity of the COVID-19 vaccine to two billion doses.

    The partnership with the Indian institute — one of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturers — will help supply it to a large number of low- and middle-income countries.

    AstraZeneca has established separate supply chains for the vaccine in Europe, the United States, India and is also looking at setting up production in China, Soriot said.

    He added AstraZeneca, which is undertaking the work on a non-profit basis, could lose money if trials prove disappointing.

    But he said the company was sharing the financial risk with organisations such as CEPI.

    “We’re manufacturing indeed at risk — and that’s the only way to have the vaccine ready to go if it works,” he added.

    Oxford University began initial trials of its COVID-19 vaccine with hundreds of volunteers in April, and is now expanding them to 10,000 participants.

    It said last month they were “progressing very well”.

    Researchers announced this week they will also start tests in mid-June in Brazil, the first country outside Britain to take part in the study, as the South American country’s virus infection rate spirals while the UK’s falls.

  • Youth shot dead by militants in Baramulla: Police

    PTI

    Srinagar: A youth was shot dead by militants in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday, police said.

    Civilian Ishfaq Ahmad Najar (25) was attacked by the militants at his residence in Adipora in Bomai area of north Kashmir at around 9:30 PM, a police official said.

    He said Najar was injured when the militants opened fire at him. He was rushed to a hospital, but was declared brought dead by the doctors there.

    Police have registered a case and a manhunt has been launched to nab the assailants, the official said.

  • J-K virus case count up by nearly 150

    PTI


    Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday recorded 143 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the total number of infections to 3,467, officials said.

    They said while 100 of these cases were reported from the Kashmir region, 43 were from Jammu.

    “143 new positive cases of coronavirus were detected in the union territory on Saturday,” one of them said.

    The officials said the total number of cases in Jammu and Kashmir has now reached 3,467 — 2,615 in Kashmir region, 852 in Jammu.

    They said there are 2,302 active cases in the union territory — 1,646 in Kashmir and 656 in Jammu.

    A total of 1,126 patients have recovered, they said.

    The UT has witnessed 39 COVID-19 related deaths.

  • Two new COVID-19 cases in Ladakh, tally reaches 99

    PTI

    Leh: Two more people tested positive for COVID-19 in Ladakh taking the total number of cases in the Union Territory to 99, Health department officials said on Saturday.

    A senior Congress leader had died due to the virus while 50 patients have been cured and discharged so far, the officials added.

    The officials said two people from Kargil district tested positive for coronavirus, taking the number of active cases in Ladakh to 48.

    While 40 active cases are undergoing treatment in Kargil, the remaining eight are admitted in a COVID-19 hospital in Leh, they said, adding the condition of all the 48 patients is stable.

    They said the new patients were shifted to a COVID-19 hospital in Kargil and efforts are on to identify their contacts.

    Out of the 50 patients cured of the disease, the officials said two of them were discharged from Mahabodhi COVID-19 hospital in Leh on Saturday morning after their negative sample reports were received by the department on Friday night.

  • UMTA approved to revamp urban transport in JK

    PTI

    Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Saturday approved setting up of Unified Metropolitan Transport Authorities (UMTAs) for better management and regulation of vehicular traffic in Jammu and Srinagar, an official spokesperson said.

    The approval was given at a meeting of the administrative council which met here under the chairmanship of Lt Governor G C Murmu, he said.

    “The decision is aimed at developing an advanced, well planned and better coordinated transport system in the capital cities by overcoming the dissonance arising from multiplicity of existing agencies with their separate and at times conflicting policies under the guidance of National Urban Transport Policy, 2006,” the spokesperson said.

    Once functional, the UMTA would secure the development of an integrated, efficient, modern, multi-modal mobility system including non-motorized transport.

    “UMTA is also envisioned to aid policy formulation and regulation for undertaking integrated and holistic planning for transport services with associated infrastructure by focusing on coordination across different organisations, agencies and management of common facilities,” he said.

    The spokesperson said the sanctioned bodies will be headed by the chief secretary with administrative secretaries and officers of the key departments or authorities impinging on transport and mobility, nominees of agencies of central government and independent experts as members.

    These new bodies will function as a part of respective Metropolitan Region Development Authorities created under the J&K Metropolitan Region Development Authorities Act, 2018, he said.

  • Noida | Pregnant woman dies in ambulance after 13-hour search for hospital bed

    Family claims over half-a-dozen hospitals in Gautam Buddha Nagar refused to admit her

    An eight-month pregnant woman died in an ambulance after her family reportedly struggled to get her admitted to a hospital despite a frantic search for over 13 hours. The family claimed she was denied treatment by over half-a-dozen hospitals in Gautam Buddha Nagar.

    The district administration said it has ordered a probe to ascertain the facts related to the death of 30-year-old Neelam, a Khoda Colony resident, in the ambulance outside a hospital in Greater Noida on Friday night.

    In a video circulating on social media, Neelam’s husband Vijender Singh is seen claiming that he had pleaded at the doors of several hospitals, including government-run facilities, before she died. “We first went to the ESI Hospital, then to a hospital in Sector 30 [Child PGI]; from there we went to the Sharda Hospital. All of them refused to admit her,” her husband alleged in the video which surfaced on Saturday morning.

    ‘Ventilator support’

    “She was admitted to the Government Institute of Medical Sciences [Greater Noida] where she also got a ventilator but it was too late by then. In all, the death happened in the ambulance itself,” said the husband.

    Neelam was undergoing treatment for pregnancy-related complications at the Shivalik Hospital in Noida which is a private facility, said Mr. Singh.

    He alleged that the family also tried to get her admitted to Jaypee and Fortis hospitals in Gautam Buddha Nagar and the Max Hospital in Vaishali, Ghaziabad, only to be told that no beds were available.

    Gautam Buddha Nagar District Magistrate Suhas L.Y. has ordered a probe into the incident. “Additional DM Munindra Nath Upadhyay and Chief Medical Officer Deepak Ohri will probe the matter. The DM has instructed them to immediately carry out a probe and take action,” the district administration said in an official statement.

    A similar incident was reported in Gautam Buddha Nagar on the night of May 25, when a newborn died allegedly due to lack of medical support as his father kept shuttling from one hospital to another between Greater Noida and Noida. Two private hospitals have been booked for alleged negligence in the case.

    With inputs from The Hindu