| | 5 THINGS FIRST | SC hearing on telecom AGR dues; Delhi HC hearing on Jamia violence; Online auction of Mahatma Gandhi’s glasses in UK; RBI Deputy Governor’s selection by Cabinet Secretary-led panel; Europa League final Sevilla vs Inter Milan (12:30 am, Saturday) | |
| | 1. India tops 1.2 mn cases in Aug, highest in the world |  | - India has recorded more than 1.2 million fresh Covid-19 cases in August, higher than in any previous month and the highest count by any country during the month. Till August 20, India had 1,207,539 cases, per data collated from state governments; the tally for the whole of July was 1,109,444.
- India's case count this month continues to the world's highest, with the US in second place (994,863 cases till August 19) and Brazil third (794,115), according to Worldometer. As far as deaths in August go, India’s third, behind the US and Brazil.
Thursday’s count
- Cases: 69,317, second highest single-day tally; Overall: 2.9 million+
- Deaths: 986
- Sero surveys: The second serological survey conducted across Delhi has revealed that the prevalence of Covid antibodies has gone up to 29.1% of the population, up from 23.5% in the first survey. This means that over 5.8 million of the Capital’s 20 million population has been infected with the coronavirus and recovered successfully. Their risk of getting infected again is now low.
- This on the day when Punjab government’s first exclusive serological survey in five containment zones — Amritsar, Ludhiana, Mohali, Patiala and Jalandhar — revealed that 27.7% of people residing in them have already been exposed to Covid as they have developed antibodies.
- Vaccine update: The Centre is considering initially procuring around 5 million doses of Covid vaccine for frontline workers, Army personnel and certain others. The prioritisation of the vaccine has been under discussion along with planning supply chains and distribution.
- City alert: People in Mumbai aged 50+ and testing positive won’t be allowed to self-isolate at home and will be strongly pursued to opt for institutional isolation. A very high mortality rate seen among those getting hospitalised after 4-5 days of home isolation has warranted the change in protocols, BMC officials said. 83% of Covid deaths in Mumbai have come from the age-groups above 50, though they account for 42% of total cases.
- Finally: The Centre eased norms to offer 50% of salary for three months as unemployment allowance to workers who are members of the Employees State Insurance Corporation and lost their jobs due to the pandemic. The move is expected to benefit around 3-3.5 million workers.
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| | 2. Three months on, India, China talk complete disengagement |  | - The statement: India and China have reaffirmed to “sincerely work towards complete disengagement of troops along LAC in the western sector”, the spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs, Anurag Srivastava, said on Thursday. The statement came after the representatives of the two nations held talks under the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border disputes on Thursday; MEA termed the talks “candid and in-depth”.
- The wait: It has been nearly three months since China intruded into what India considers as its side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), yet the talks haven’t made much success in restoring the status quo ante that India wants to achieve. Status quo ante refers to the positioning and patrols of troops as it were in April.
- The beginning: Chinese troops (PLA) began their buildup near the LAC in mid-April, and intruded into the Indian side in May. The Indian defence ministry had recently acknowledged that the intrusion began in May in an official document, only to take it down from the website the next day.
- The talks: Indian and Chinese troops have held five rounds of corps commander-level talks and another round of major general-level talks. The deadly clash on June 15 at Galwan Valley occurred after the first round, when Indian troops tried to dismantle tents erected by PLA. The subsequent talks led to a “temporary buffer zone” at Galwan Valley, though that has meant Indian troops are not patrolling the areas they used before April. At Pangong Tso and Hot Spring, PLA has refused to retreat.
Also: The ministry said it wants an Indian lawyer to represent Kulbhushan Jadhav in the review proceedings at Islamabad High Court. | |
| | 3. SC gives breathing space to Bhushan |  | - Activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan on Thursday refused to apologise for his tweets for which he was found guilty of contempt by the Supreme Court last week. Bhushan defiantly told a bench of Justices Arun Mishra, B R Gavai and Krishna Murari that he would "cheerfully accept penalty without seeking the court's mercy or magnanimity".
- The bench baulked at the defiance and said the tone and tenor of the statement appeared to aggravate the contempt. It asked Bhushan to take "two-three days’ time and think over it and modify it".
- Justice Mishra said Bhushan should admit before the court "from the core of his heart" that he realised his mistake of 'crossing the Lakshman Rekha' and promise not to repeat it.
- Bhushan bluntly told the court - "I do not want to reconsider my statement". When the bench said he should not blame the court later for not giving him time to rethink, Bhushan said, "the statement was well thought out and considered one. If the Supreme Court wants, I can think over. But, it is unlikely that there will be any substantial change. I do not want to waste the court's time anymore." However, a little later, he said, "I will consult my lawyers and see if any change can be made".
- The bench rejected Bhushan's plea for deferment of sentencing till his (yet to be filed) petition seeking review of the judgement convicting him of contempt. But it clarified that in the event of awarding punishment to him, the sentence would be kept in abeyance till the court decided his review petition.
- Countering Bhushan’s lawyer, senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan’s argument seeking leniency for Bhushan, the court said that it “can be lenient only when a person realises his mistake and is sincere about it”. More details here
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| | 4. In Tamil Nadu, allies AIADMK, BJP spar over Vinayaka Chaturthi |  | File photo- The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday stood firm on its stand against allowing Vinayaka Chaturthi (Ganesh Chaturthi) celebrations in public in view of the pandemic, despite criticism from the BJP. In a notification issued on Thursday, the state government, ruled by the AIADMK, an ally of the BJP, cited the Union Home Ministry’s July 29 notification under the National Disaster Management Act, 2005, to reiterate religious festivals, mass prayers and such continue to be banned in the country. The festival is on Saturday (August 20).
- The AIADMK government in a notice issued last Thursday had asked the Vinayaka Chaturthi celebration to be limited indoors; public installation of idols or procession to immerse them in sea or water bodies will not be allowed, it said. This had prompted public criticism by the BJP state president L. Murugan who said the government is “placing obstacles to the remover of obstacles”. Hindu Makkal Munnani State president K. Subramaniyan said the organisation will defy the state government’s rules to instal 150,000 idols in the state. The Frontline reported that BJP’s Murugan, Munnani’s Subramaniyan met Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami to reiterate their demand that the government withdraw its order banning the celebrations.
- The rift turned ugly when BJP leader H Raja tweeted a misogynistic statement against AIADMK — he said the party leaders used to hide behind a saree, a reference to late chief minister J Jayalalithaa.
- Tamil Nadu has the second-highest number of cumulative cases and the fourth-highest number of active cases of Covid-19, consistently reporting over 5,500 cases a day.
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| | | 6. Why all rail accident deaths aren’t the same |  | - The Indian Railways on Thursday clarified that even though more than one person died every hour due to its trains in the last three years, its own fatality record was zero. The clarification came after Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant questioned the veracity of its zero fatality claim.
- Railway Board chairman V K Yadav explained that the 30,000 deaths that occurred in the last three years were due to “trespassing and other untoward incidents” — after Kant said that there are over 1,000 fatalities in Mumbai’s suburban trains alone every year, with people falling overboard or from the platform.
- Yadav clarified that the Railways categorises accidents under three heads — consequential, trespassing and untoward incidents. The zero fatality claim was under the consequential accidents head.
- Railways’ definition of consequential accidents includes “collisions, derailments, fire or explosion in trains, road vehicles colliding with trains at level crossings, and certain specified types of ‘miscellaneous’ train mishaps”.
- The Railways says loss of lives which occurred were due to “trespassing”. The deaths of 59 people standing on railway tracks, who were run over by two trains, in 2018 in Amritsar to watch Dusshera celebrations was categorised as trespassing.
- Kant had asked that all deaths due to trespassing shouldn’t be “excluded from the purview of RRSK (Rashtriya Rail Sanrakshan Kosh)”, which is a fund set up in 2017-18 with a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore over five years, for strengthening safety through “preventive and predictive maintenance”. Of this, the finance ministry provides Rs 15,000 crore annually, while the remaining Rs 5,000 crore is provided by the Ministry of Railways.
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| | 7. Yet again, Indore’s the cleanest of 'em all |  | - The cleanest: Indore in Madhya Pradesh was named as India’s cleanest city for the fourth consecutive year, according to the Swachh Survekshan 2020 survey results announced on Thursday. While Gujarat’s Surat bagged the second spot, Maharashtra’s Navi Mumbai ranked third. It is the fifth edition of the survey that was introduced by PM Narendra Modi in January 2016. (Mysuru in Karnataka had topped the very first edition.) In the category of cities with a population of less than 100,000, Maharashtra’s Karad bagged top spot, followed by Saswad and Lonavala.
- The dirtiest: While Bihar’s capital Patna was named the dirtiest city in the survey, East Delhi and Chennai came in second- and third-from bottom, respectively. For cities with populations less than 100,000, Gaya, Buxar (in Bihar) and Punjab’s Abohar made up the bottom three.
- Also: The ‘best performing states’ category was divided into two parts: States with more than 100 urban local bodies (ULBs) and those with less than 100 ULBs. Chhattisgarh was ranked first in the former category while Jharkhand topped the latter. In the ‘cleanest Ganga town’ category — that was introduced last year — Varanasi was ranked first.
- Swachh Survekshan 2020, which claims to be the world's largest cleanliness survey, ranked 4,242 cities, 62 cantonment boards and 92 Ganga towns, which account for a population of approximately 18.7 million people in the country. The survey focussed on collection segregated waste and maintenance till processing site, treatment and reuse of wastewater, curtailing solid waste-based air pollution, among other factors.
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| | | 8. Putin critic in coma after suspected poisoning |  | Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, a critic of President Vladimir Putin, is in a coma at a Siberian hospital after drinking tea suspected to be laced with poison. His spokeswoman said Navalny started feeling ill when returning to Moscow from Tomsk in Siberia by plane on Wednesday morning. He only had the tea in the morning, she said. An anti-corruption leader, Navalny is best known for his investigations into official graft which he posts on his YouTube channel. More hereFingers point at the Kremlin. Moscow is known to have targeted critics by similar means. - In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a dissident spy, died in London after drinking tea laced with polonium-210, a highly radioactive substance.
- In 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former double agent, was poisoned with a nerve agent in 2018 in Salisbury, England.
- Opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza survived attempted assassination by poisoning twice, in 2015 and 2017.
- In 2004, Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yuschenko, fell ill after being exposed to a near-fatal dose of dioxin.
- It's an old habit of Moscow, going back to the days of Soviet Union. Targets of that era include Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov in 1978.
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| | 9. The franchises have landed! |  | Rajasthan Royals- Kings XI Punjab, Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders on Thursday became the first franchises to leave for IPL 2020 in the UAE. According to news agency PTI, Royals and KXIP landed in Dubai via a charter flight, which will be the norm this IPL due to the ongoing health crisis. A little later in the evening, Kolkata Knight Riders arrived in Abu Dhabi, their base for the tournament..
Kolkata Knight Riders
- Earlier, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) CEO Kasi Viswanathan had confirmed that the franchise will leave for the UAE today. However, offspinner Harbhajan Singh might not travel to Dubai with the rest of the squad, due to his mother’s illness. He’s likely to join his team-mates in Dubai in two weeks’ time.
- Defending champions Mumbai Indians and Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore also fly out today. Delhi Capitals will reach tomorrow while Sunrisers Hyderabad will be the last team to depart, on Sunday.
- The players and staff of all the teams will undergo Covid-19 tests upon their arrival at the UAE airports before being put in a six-day quarantine. Once they complete the quarantine, teams can start their training sessions in the UAE for the tournament. The 13th edition of IPL begins September 19.
Kings XI Punjab | |
| | BEFORE YOU GO | | 10. Paper ballots or life insurance for Bihar voters? |  | As Bihar gears up for polls later this year, political parties in the state have offered suggestions to the Election Commission on how best to do it. Among the most interesting ones: - The Congress, RJD and AIMIM have suggested using paper ballots rather than electronic voting machines to prevent spreading Covid-19 as many voters touch each machine.
- The BJP wants that no person lodged in jail be permitted to campaign in the virtual mode. The suggestion is aimed at blocking any virtual campaign by jailed RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav.
- The BJP wants distribution of “essential safety items” not be considered as a ‘bribe’ to the voter.
- Congress has said that organisers of public meetings not should not be blamed for any breach by the public.
- Other suggestions include life-insurance for voters who contract Covid-19 during poll, by RJD; and compulsory and free Covid testing for polling staff and candidates at periodic intervals, by AIMIM.
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| | Answer to NEWS IN CLUES | Steve Bannon. The former Trump advisor has been arrested and charged with fraud over a fundraising campaign to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. Bannon and three others defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with the ‘We Build the Wall’ campaign, which raised $25 million (Rs 187.6 crore), the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said. Bannon received more than $1 million, at least some of which he used to cover personal expenses, the DoJ said. He’s due to appear in court later. | |
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| Written by: Rakesh Rai, Judhajit Basu, Sumil Sudhakaran, Tejeesh N.S. Behl
Research: Rajesh Sharma
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