PM Modi to make aerial survey of Amphan-hit areas in Odisha, West Bengal; Booking of train tickets to resume at common service centres; Harsh Vardhan takes over as chairman of WHO executive board; Sonia Gandhi to chair opposition meet over migrants issue; Chinese premier Li Keqiang to address the National People's Congress

The Civil Aviation Ministry came out with a set of rules that passengers, airports and airlines will need to follow once domestic flight operations resume from March 25. So what does it entail?

For passengers

• Reaching 2 hours before the scheduled time of departure will be compulsory and you would be allowed in only if your flight departs within the next 4 hours.
• Wearing a face mask and gloves will be compulsory throughout the journey, as will the installation of the Aarogya Setu app, with only children under 14 years exempted. Not only will CISF personnel check each passenger’s phone to verify this, but the app will need to show them in the green, in order to gain entry into the airport terminal.
• Only one check-in and one cabin baggage will be allowed per passenger, who will have to web check-in and download baggage tags. The scanning of e-boarding passes will be done by passengers themselves.

For airlines

• There will be no in-flight meal services, with only water bottles available. Neither will there be any in-flight sales. Use of toilets will be restricted with no queuing up allowed and just one companion for children and the elderly allowed.
• Airline operations will initially be restricted to just one third of their total weekly capacity, till August 24.
• Boarding of passengers to be allowed in batches of 10 and only after a second thermal screening.
• More importantly, fares on all routes will have a minimum and maximum limit — with at least 40% of the seats to be sold below the midpoint price. So, for example, on the Delhi-Mumbai sector — the country’s densest air route — where the minimum and maximum fares are Rs 3,500 and Rs 10,000 respectively, 40% of the seats are to be sold below Rs 6,750. The limits are based on flight duration and divided into seven time bands, starting from those under 40 minutes to those up to three and a half hours.

• All cabin crew to be dressed in full body protective gear — which includes full body gown and shoe cover.

For airports

• Inside airports, placement of social distancing markers will be mandatory, including on chairs which will be marked “Not for use”.
• All baggage will be sanitised, there will be limited use of trolleys. All airport staff will also be required to wear masks and gloves, while check-in as well as security counters will have a clear glass shield barrier between passengers and staff.
• Airports will conduct regular sanitisation of the entire terminal building which will have restricted use of air-conditioning.
• All touch points and surfaces, such as hand-rails, to be sanitised every 30 minutes while washrooms to be continuously sanitised. Airports to designate different entry gates for airlines to avoid overcrowding.

Full list here

21-year-old Kanti Banjari was among the scores of India’s internal migrants returning home aboard the Shramik Special trains after over two months of hardship and uncertainty. But Kanti was carrying a child, and en route Chhattisgarh from Amritsar, she went into labour. The train halted at the Pandhurna Station in Madhya Pradesh, not far from Nagpur, to provide some semblance of normalcy, and she gave birth to a healthy boy, with medical practitioners in attendance.

At least 24 women have gone into labour on board Shramik Special trains between May 1 and May 21. 16 of them gave birth in the train while the rest were rushed to hospitals in time, the Indian Railways official told Times of India.

Madhu Kumari, 27, gave birth to a girl aboard the Ahmedabad-Banda train on Tuesday, attended to by fellow women passengers who fetched water from the toilet, and collected towels and sanitisers from others. To ease her labour pain, they propped her over a bag. The newborn and the mother got medical attention only after the train reached Jhansi railway station, 110km away. “When my wife went into labour, I thought I would lose them both. I blamed myself for making this journey. But what other option did we have? There was no job or income left,” said Kumari’s husband Manoj Kumar, who hails from UP’s Raebareli.

Subhadra, 23, aboard the Jalandhar-Moradabad train, and Mintu Devi, 21, in the Jirania-Khagaria train, were able to get medical assistance arranged by the Railway Police Force (RPF), as they gave birth in the coach.

But for a 29-year-old pregnant woman aboard a train from Jodhpur to Basti, all the pain and hardship ended in tragedy. “She gave birth to twins but one was stillborn and the other died shortly after birth. She was later admitted to the Basti Civil Hospital,” said a railways official.

• Clue 1: Prakash Javadekar succeeded him as Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change last year.
• Clue 2: The 65-year-old was a practising ENT surgeon before entering public life in 1993.
• Clue 3: He represents Chandni Chowk in Delhi as an MP in the 17th Lok Sabha.

Scroll below for answer

Apple and Google have jointly launched a software tool that would notify mobile phone users if they — or rather their device — have come in close proximity to a Covid-19 infected person, provided the latter has agreed to share the information. Note: The in-built software is not an app but a tool (an API) public health officials and governments can use to develop their individual apps.

Why it matters

• Privacy: The tool only relies on Bluetooth to detect proximity and not GPS data, which is more intrusive and can be traced back to identify the person even if anonymised. Users data will be anonymised, and data stay on the devices rather than stored at a centralised server maintained by a government. Any app that is developed based on the API will have to adhere to these conditions.
• Consent: The system is developed to be opt-in. An infected user will have to consent to submit the health data.
• Sunset: The built-in tools will have a sunset clause and will cease to operate at the end of the pandemic, thereby avoiding misuse of the technology beyond the immediate need.
• Stable: Because it is coded into the operating system of mobile phones — Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android together have a nearly 90% market share globally — it negates some of the difficulties apps governments have developed on their own have faced, such as shutting down in the background.

But...

• The privacy conditions have not been welcomed by many governments. Some countries have developed their own apps that also use GPS data to trace contact — for instance, India’s Aarogya Setu — and these would continue to function as intended regardless of the tool.
• Also, Google and Apple have developed the tool to be a notification technology and not strictly for contact tracing. The subtle difference is that the user will be notified if she has been exposed to risk and it is up to her to contact the authorities for further action.
• That the data will not be stored on a centralised server means governments cannot develop a ‘heat map’ for policy intervention. “An app that provides fantastic provable privacy but doesn’t help stop the spread of the disease isn’t a useful tool,” Ian Levy, technical director of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, which helped develop a contract tracing app for the NHS, said in a blog post.

As India eases the lockdown and people start moving out, one question that’s being asked more frequently is this — how do we know you are not Covid-19 positive?

• At hospitals: A 15-year-old boy suffering from a kidney ailment died on May 16 after six hospitals denied him dialysis, demanding a Covid-negative report first. A businessman suffering from a respiratory tract infection died after being denied a bed at a Covid hospital as he was not a ‘confirmed’ coronavirus patient. Though states have asked hospitals to admit all patients without seeking such certificates, the demands continue.
• At home: A housing society in Gurugram, Haryana asked residents to get their domestic staff tested for Covid-19 before they are allowed to work. Another one in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, asked residents who were away for a day to produce 'Covid-free' certificates to be allowed entry. A man wasn't allowed in his house by his wife upon returning from a coronavirus infected town till he produced a Covid negative certificate. India’s testing protocols do not allow this. Testing for Covid-19 requires a doctor's prescription and a person to show symptoms.
• At work: After being told by Delhi High Court to allow hassle-free movement of essential service providers, the Haryana government made it mandatory for those applying for passes to produce a Covid-19 negative certificate. Employees of several private companies lined up at government hospitals in Bengaluru seeking to be tested, saying their employers insist they produce Covid negative certificates if they want to work. The state health department said no employer can make such a demand.
• On the way back home: Kerala made it mandatory for expatriates from the state to carry a Covid-19 negative certificate if they wanted to return home.
• A problem: Private labs offering Covid-19 tests are so stretched that some are giving patients two to three days' time to collect samples — a waiting time that can prove fatal for those who have pre-existing illness and other complications. The reason for the delay — the testing capacity is limited and governments have threatened action if the results are delayed.
• New guidelines? Given that the demands for proving that one is not Covid-19 positive are getting a little random, it may soon be time for governments to clarify when and who can ask for such tests.

Harsh Vardhan. India’s Union health minister takes over as the chairman of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) 34-member executive board today, succeeding Japan’s Hiroki Nakatani. As head of the board that is mandated to implement the decisions of the World Health Assembly, he will have to work closely with WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Vardhan, who will continue on the board for two more years after his one-year term as chairman ends, will also have a say in shortlisting the next WHO director general when Ghebreyesus’s five-year-tenure ends in May 2021.