Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has sought a detailed analytical report from the Delhi government’s health secretary on factors responsible for COVID-19 deaths in the city in the last fortnight, officials said.
Delhi reported 736 deaths in the last two weeks, with 397 people succumbing to the disease in the first week of July.
Officials said the objective of seeking the report is to take all possible measures to reduce coronavirus deaths in the national capital.
A total of 3,165 COVID-19 deaths have occurred in Delhi so far.PTI
OBC leaders and ministers of Mahavikas Aghadi should not show love of aunty for OBC community, show love of mother OBC leader, – Anil Mahajan slammed OBC ministers in power.
Mahajoti Sanstha Mahavikas Aghadi, established by the previous Devendra Fadnavis government for the OBC community, should be started immediately.
State President of OBC Jankranti Parishad and Maharashtra Mali Samaj Mahasangh, OBC leaders and Anilbhau Mahajan have written letters to the Chief Minister and the Minister to convey the sentiments of the OBC community to the government. He has written a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. In this letter, he has given this copy to the Chief Minister and Backward Classes Minister Vijay Vadettiwar and Minister Chhagan Bhujbal. The letter requested the government to set up an organization called Mahajoti with the following five demands.
(01) An IAS officer should be appointed as MD at Mahajoti
(02) The office of Mahajoti Sanstha should be located in the center of Pune.
(03) Give a fund of 1000 crores to this Mahajoti Sanstha.
(04) The departmental work of this organization should be started all over the state.
(05) All the original OBC officers should be appointed in this Mahajoti Sanstha.
Devendra Fadnavis The BJP government has set up an organization called Mahajoti for the development of the OBC community. Such is the legal ruling. Its head office was at Pune. It is understood that the Mahavikas Alliance government has shifted it to Nagpur in Vidarbha. The leader of each community sees how his community will progress. So which Ganpati did the OBC leader of the ruling party go to drown? Such a question has arisen. Such a toll was imposed by Mahajan.
Three security force personnel were injured in an encounter with militants in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, police said.
A police official said that a militant was believed to have been killed during the encounter as he was shot at when he tried to jump from a house. However, the body of the militant is yet to be retrieved.
On a tip off about presence of militants in Goosu village of Pulwama, security forces launched a cordon and search operation, the official said.
He said the search operation turned into an encounter after militants opened fire towards security forces positions.
Three security force personnel sustained injuries in the initial firefight. They have been evacuated to a hospital here, the official said.
The operation was going on till last reports came in.PTI
Seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson has tested positive for the coronavirus and will miss this weekend’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The 44-year-old Johnson is the first driver in any NASCAR series to test positive and the news Friday evening cast a shadow over the historic NASCAR-IndyCar doubleheader races coming up Saturday and Sunday. There was no indication any races would be affected.
Hendrick Motorsports said Johnson will not return until he is cleared by a physician. He was tested earlier Friday after his wife, Chani, tested positive after experiencing allergy-like symptoms.
Johnson is asymptomatic.
“My first priority is the health and safety of my loved ones and my teammates,” Johnson said.
“I’ve never missed a race in my Cup career, but I know it’s going to be very hard to watch from the sidelines when I’m supposed to be out there competing. Although this situation is extremely disappointing, I’m going to come back ready to win races and put ourselves in playoff contention.”
Johnson earlier Friday held a Zoom session with reporters to discuss Sunday’s race and an upcoming test of an Indy car on the road course at the fabled venue. He will now miss that test, as well as what was supposed to be his final Brickyard 400. Justin Allgaier will replace him in the No. 48 Chevrolet.
“Jimmie has handled this situation like the champion he is,” said Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports.
“We’re relieved he isn’t showing symptoms and that Chani is doing great, and we know he’ll be back and ready to go very soon. It’s going to be difficult for him to be out of the car and away from his team, but it’s the right thing to do for Jimmie and everyone involved.”
Hendrick Motorsports said it has implemented detailed procedures to protect the health of its team members. They include daily COVID-19 screenings at the team facilities; the separation of facility operations and traveling personnel; split work schedules; stringent face covering and social distancing requirements; and an increased level of disinfecting and sanitization of all work areas.
Johnson is scheduled to retire from full-time NASCAR competition at the end of the season and was trying to tie Jeff Gordon and Michael Schumacher as the only five-time winners at Indianapolis.
Johnson has made 663 conscutive Cup Series starts the longest streak among active drivers and is currently 12th in the standings, 63 points inside the playoff picture. NASCAR’s rules state a driver must be symptom free and have two negative coronavirus tests in a 24-hour span to return.
NASCAR said it has granted Johnson a playoff waiver.
“Jimmie is a true battle-tested champion, and we wish him well in his recovery,” the series said.
Johnson could potentially also miss the Cup race at Kentucky and the All-Star race at Bristol. Next week’s test of the road course at Indy in Scott Dixon’s car has also been scrapped.
NASCAR was one of the first sports to resume competition from the pandemic shutdown and has completed 11 Cup races since its May 17 return. The sanctioning body does not test for coronavirus but participants are required to do a temperature check as they enter the facility.
Drivers have been told to isolate at the track and there is very little interaction beyond radio conversation between the competitor and his crew.
Although Stewart-Haas Racing and Team Penske both said they’ve had positive tests from shop-based team members, Johnson is the first driver. Earlier Friday, Brazilian sports car driver Felipe Nasr said he had tested positive and will miss Saturday’s IMSA event at Daytona International Speedway.
Johnson earlier Friday discussed the Indy car test scheduled with Chip Ganassi Racing, which he said was the first step in determine if actual races are in his future. If he’s any good, he said, he would be open to racing all 12 street and road course events on the IndyCar schedule.
Johnson has long said safety concerns would keep him from racing on IndyCar oval tracks, but Friday he offered a surprisingly softer stance about the Indy 500.
IndyCar this year unveiled its aeroscreen windshield designed to protect the drivers from debris as they sit in the open-air cockpits. Saturday will mark just the second race with the device, but it appeared problem-free last month on the oval at high-speed Texas Motor Speedway.
“Their safety on ovals has dramatically increased this year with the windscreen. So, I’ll keep a close eye on things there and see how the safety level looks,” Johnson said.
“I’ve always wanted to race the Indy 500. I’d have to do a lot of selling to my wife to get that pass, but my true desire right now is to just run the road courses.”
Johnson has his eye on the street course race in Long Beach, California, a race that was canceled this year because of the coronavirus pandemic but is one of the most storied events on the IndyCar calendar at a track just a couple hours from his native El Cajon.
“When I was a kid growing up, the closest IndyCar racing for me was at Long Beach so one of my hopes is that I am able to race at Long Beach,” Johnson said.
“I hung on the fence a lot as a kid watching and dreaming. …. There’s a lot of sentimental value with that race and I hope to race there.”
He is stuck in a three-year losing streak but Hendrick Motorsports has been dramatically improved this season and Johnson has been competitive. He has also been actively prepping for a whirl in an Indy car and had been scheduled to test with the McLaren team before the pandemic.
“It’s a test, it’s a tryout and it’s a two-way street. Two-way tryout for the team to look at me and for myself to look at a team,” he said.
“If I’m about four seconds off the pace, then that’s probably a quick sign that I don’t need to be in one of these cars. If I’m within a certain amount of time and I have a good feel of the car, then for me, I feel like that’s an important first step that I need to know that I can be competitive.
“I do not want to go race in any series and not be competitive,” he said.PTI
Maidaan , featuring actor Ajay Devgn in the lead, will now hit the theatres on August 13 next year .
Based on the golden years of Indian football, “Maidaan”, was initially scheduled to release on November 27, but earlier this year the makers pushed the film to December 11.
Devgn took to Twitter on Saturday to announce the new release date of the movie.
“2021 Independence week. An untold story that will make every Indian proud. 13th August mark the date. #Maidaan2021 (sic),” he wrote alongside the poster of the film.
Owing to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the shoot of the film has got affected and it is likely to begin post monsoon.
In “Maidaan”, the 51-year-old actor will portray the role of Syed Abdul Rahim, who served as a coach and manager of Indian football team from 1950 until his death in 1963.
The movie is directed by Amit Ravinder Nath Sharma of “Badhaai Ho!” fame, Saiwyn Quadros has written the screenplay, while Ritesh Shah has penned the dialogues.
Also starring Priyamani, Gajraj Rao and Bengali actor Rudranil Ghosh,”Maidaan” is presented by Zee Studios and Boney Kapoor.
Kapoor who is also serving as the producer along with Akash Chawla and Arunava Joy Sengupta.
Devgn recently announced his film “Bhuj: The Pride of India” is headed for a direct release on streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar as theatres remain closed due to the pandemic.
Air France and regional subsidiary Hop announced 7,500 job cuts Friday after the virus pandemic grounded most flights and darkened prospects for future air travel.
Activists from multiple unions protested at Air France headquarters at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport as talks began Friday morning about future job prospects at France’s flagship airline.
They’re particularly angry that the French government didn’t require Air France to protect jobs when it won 7 billion euros ( 8 billion) in state bailout funds in May.
Workers warned that the job cuts will ripple across the French economy, and said bailout funds should be used to rebuild the company instead of pushing people into unemployment.
After a day of talks with personnel representatives, company management announced Friday night that it will cut about 6,500 of 41,000 jobs at Air France and 1,000 of the 2,400 jobs at Hop by 2022.
The company said most of the losses will come through not replacing retiring and departing workers and that it would encourage voluntary departures and early retirements before imposing layoffs.
Airlines around the world are forecast to lose 84 billion this year, with revenue halved. Some have filed for bankruptcy or sought bailouts to survive the near-shutdown in their activity, and officials predict the industry will take years to recover.
It’s too easy to take COVID-19 as an excuse, said Julien Lemarie, a 35-year-old Hop mechanic demonstrating at the airport.
The scale of this plan it’s enormous, it’s an absolute sledgehammer blow. Air France said its traffic sank 95% over the worst three months of the coroavirus pandemic and it was losing 15 million euros a day and that it doesn’t expect to recover until 2024.
The airline argued that the state bailout would allow it to withstand the short-term crisis and help it focus on changing its domestic business model and becoming more environmentally responsible.
The 7 billion euros in state aid for Air France is in the form of loans and loan guarantees and part of a broader 15 billion euro rescue plan from the government for the aviation sector.
The Air France meetings come days after European aircraft manufacturer Airbus, based in France, said that it must eliminate 15,000 jobs to safeguard its future.PTI
Heavy rain in southern Japan triggered flooding and mudslides on Saturday, leaving more than a dozen missing and others stranded on rooftops waiting to be rescued.
More than 75,000 residents in the southern prefectures of Kumamoto and Kagoshima were asked to evacuate following pounding rains overnight.
NHK television footage showed large areas of Hitoyoshi town in Kumamoto inundated in muddy waters that gushed out from the Kuma River. Many cars were submerged up to their windows.
Mudslides smashed into houses and floodwaters carried trunks from uprooted trees. Several people were standing atop a convenience store as they waited for rescuers.
NHK said about 13 people were reported missing. Kumamoto officials say they were still assessing the extent of damage.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set up a task force, vowing to do utmost to rescue the missing.
The Japan Meteorological Agency earlier issued warnings of extraordinary rain in parts of Kumamoto, about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) southwest of Tokyo, but later downgraded them as the rainfall estimated at 100 milimeters (4 inches) per hour subsided.
Kumamoto Gov. Ikuo Kabashima said he requested help from the Japan Self-Defense Forces.
As the world fights extraordinary challenges, their lasting solutions can come from the ideals of Lord Buddha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday.
Addressing the Dhamma Chakra Day event, the prime minister said the eight-fold path of Lord Buddha shows the way towards the well-being of many societies and nations.
It highlights the importance of compassion and kindness, he said adding that the teachings of Lord Buddha celebrate simplicity both in thought and action.
“Today the world fights extraordinary challenges. To these challenges, lasting solutions can come from the ideals of Lord Buddha. They were relevant in the past. They are relevant in the present. And, they will remain relevant in the future,” Modi said at the event.
The day is observed on Asadha Poornima.PTI
China under President Xi Jinping has stepped up its “aggressive” foreign policy toward India and “resisted” efforts to clarify the Line of Actual Control that prevented a lasting peace from being realised, according to a report released by a US Congress appointed commission.
The armies of India and China have been locked in a bitter standoff at multiple locations in eastern Ladakh for the last seven weeks, and the tension escalated after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a violent clash in the Galwan Valley on June 15.
Under General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping, Beijing has stepped up its aggressive foreign policy toward New Delhi. Since 2013, China has engaged in five major altercations with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), said a brief issued by US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
“Beijing and New Delhi have signed a series of agreements and committed to confidence-building measures to stabilise their border, but China has resisted efforts to clarify the LAC, preventing a lasting peace from being realised, said the report and was prepared at the request of the Commission to support its deliberations.
Authored by Will Green, a Policy Analyst on the Security and Foreign Affairs Team at the Commission, the report says that the Chinese government is particularly fearful of India’s growing relationship with the United States and its allies and partners.
The latest border clash is part of a broader pattern in which Beijing seeks to warn New Delhi against aligning with Washington, it said.
After Xi assumed power in 2012, there was a significant increase in clashes, despite the fact that he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi several times and Beijing and New Delhi have agreed to a series of confidence-building mechanisms designed to mitigate tensions.
Prior to 2013, the last major border clash was in 1987. The 1950s and 1960s were a particularly tense period, culminating in 1962 with a war that left thousands of soldiers dead on both sides, according to the records of China’s People’s Liberation Army, the report said.
The 2020 skirmish is in line with Beijing’s increasingly assertive foreign policy. The clash came as Beijing was aggressively pressing its other expansive sovereignty claims in the Indo-Pacific region, such as over Taiwan and in the South and East China seas, it said.
China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Beijing has built up and militarised many of the islands and reefs it controls in the region. Both areas are stated to be rich in minerals, oil and other natural resources and are vital to global trade.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims over the area.
Several weeks before the clash in the Galwan Valley, Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe called on Beijing to use fighting to promote stability as the country’s external security environment worsened, a potential indication of China’s intent to proactively initiate military tensions with its neighbours to project an image of strength, the report said.PTI
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