As Pakistan’s medical infrastructure crumbles under mounting pressure because of the adverse Covid-19 situation in the country, only a minuscule percentage of the population actually wants to get vaccinated, indicated a report.

Writing for The Diplomat, journalist Kunwar Khuldune Shahid said that people across the country continue to be reluctant to get vaccinated as they fear something might happen to them because of it. “The government is providing vaccinations and spreading awareness, but people aren’t coming to get vaccinated. We have even started a door-to-door service, but people have their own reservations and are reluctant. Only the educated ones are getting vaccinated,” Dr. Waseem Baig, the coordinator of Balochistan’s Covid-19 vaccination cell, told the magazine. Baig said that health officials are spreading awareness through various mediums but still very few people are coming to get the vaccines.

According to Shahid, health experts in Pakistan attribute vaccine hesitancy to deep-rooted conspiracy theories that range from the “microchip implantation” notion to the more localised dubbing of the vaccinations being a part of a Western “anti-Islam” agenda. Aside from the conspiracy theories, locals nationwide have been sceptical of the government’s own sincerity when it comes to fighting the virus.

“Many government officials are similarly seen flouting their own guidelines, as witnessed during last month’s Senate elections and by ministers of the ruling party who have openly shared images of private gatherings,” writes Shahid.

Expressing concern over the rapidly escalating Covid-19 situation in the country, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Saturday accused the government of failing to secure vaccines in time. Bilawal said that Prime Minister Imran Khan would have to account for every single rupee of the Coronavirus Relief Fund and asked him to tell the nation as to what happened to his so-called Tiger Force that had been formed last year to implement the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in the country to curb the spread of Covid-19, reported Dawn. The statement from the PPP chairman came a day after Imran Khan announced that the army would be deployed to assist the police in enforcing the SOPs.

Bilawal further commented that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government was dragging its feet on ensuring the availability of vaccines in the country. “If vaccination continues at the current rate, only 20 percent of the population in Pakistan will be vaccinated in more than three years,” he said. Stressing that mass vaccination was the only way to avoid economic problems caused by the pandemic, he further alleged that the people of Pakistan were suffering due to the complete failure of the PTI government to procure the vaccine in a timely manner.

Pakistan’s Covid positivity ratio jumped to over 10 percent on Sunday, a day after the country reported the highest number of deaths due to novel coronavirus. As many as 5,611 fresh infections were reported in 24 hours, while 118 people succumbed to the virus in the same period, ARY News reported.

After featuring in blockbuster films like Gold and Kabir Singh, Nikita Dutta is now winning hearts with her performance in The Big Bull. On the day of the film release on Disney+Hotstar, Nikita Dutta joined NewsX for a candid interview as part of NewsX India A-List.

Talking about her incredible journey so far, Nikita said, “When I was in school and college, I didn’t have acting on my mind. Like every other academically-oriented kid, I had plans of preparing for the IAS. It happened to me with Miss India when I just randomly decided to take part in it and from there my journey started. Right after that, once I was done with college, is when I got into television. Television was one of those things that came to me and it seemed interesting. I didn’t want to say no. After I said yes to my first show, that’s when I fell in love with acting. Slowly and steadily, after doing three television shows, I said yes to my first film  Gold, which worked well and that’s how Kabir Singh also happened. From there, I started getting more chances to be a part of some really beautiful films and that’s how it has come along all this while.”

When asked about her time on the sets of The Big Bull and how was the experience of working with Abhishek Bachchan, she expressed, “Well, I had a fabulous time on the sets of  The Big Bull. Abhishek, as a person, is extremely entertaining, especially off-camera. You can catch him in his best elements then. He is out there to make sure no one on set feels left out. He’s going to pull everybody’s leg. He’s gonna make sure he rags you a little bit. I’ve been a victim of that but that is what makes shooting so much more fun with him around. There’s so much I got to learn from him as he is way more experienced than me. Overall, working with Abhishek and Kookie sir and shooting for this film was fabulous.”

Nikita tested positive for Covid-19 before the release of the film. Sharing her thoughts on the experience, she said, “I was feeling very sick before I tested Covid positive. I was shooting for something and that’s when my co-actor tested positive and we decided to halt the shoot. That’s when I got tested for the first time. It came negative. Within a day I started feeling very unwell but when I got my second test done that also came negative. It was only in the third test that I tested positive for Covid-19. I got it done just for safety as I wanted to travel. So, by the time I tested positive, I had already started to feel much better and with passing days my health kept getting better. Covid-19 is inevitable now, especially for those working outdoors. They are somehow going to catch it.”

Expressing her views on the vaccination drive in India and whether it should be rolled out to every adult in the country, Nikita stated, “India is a highly populated country so it is right to prioritise how they have been doing. Though, I also feel it should be fast as, at the end of it, we all want to make a livelihood. We all step out to earn money so the soonest this can be done, the better it is for the country and everybody.”

On doing Rocket Gang opposite Aditya Seal, she expressed, “I am damn excited about it. We started this project back in 2019. Then, the pandemic happened. In December 2020, we were in the last leg of finishing the film but, unfortunately, we had to halt it again due to Covid cases on the set. But, I am looking forward to the release as it is an out-and-out dance-based film. I have never danced in front of the camera and there is a lot of dancing in this film.”

Throwing light on her other upcoming projects, Nikita said, “I am doing a horror film Ezra with Emraan Hashmi that’s scheduled to release this year. It is a completely different genre and I am playing an interesting character. I am elated with the kind of palette that I have in the coming year that the audience is going to get to see.”

On a concluding note, she shared a piece of advice for all the young girls who wanna make it big in Bollywood. Nikita said, “I have always followed one principle, that is, go with what your heart says, don’t get influenced by anybody who tells you how something needs to be done. Do what you think is right. This is one principle I have followed from day one. When I had said yes to television, there were a lot of people who said, ‘You are making a big mistake, don’t do this. You are gonna stuck over here and will never be able to be a part of films.’ When I wanted to do films and took a break from television, some people said, ‘You are saying no to a constant source of income. With films, you have to be patient and you just never know when you will get the next film.’ So I have heard all these things but one thing that I have always maintained is to follow my heart, do good scripts, good work and that’s all that matters in the end. Success, or whatever you do in the future, will follow accordingly.

I am off to the Himalayas. No, the Second Surge, as Covid-19 is now being described, has not made me decide to hang up my boots, to hole up in a mountain cave, living my remaining years as a hermit — a far cry from doing so. It’s just that I am in dire need of a break or given the current scenario ‘a getaway’ the apt description, having been nailed to Delhi, dear Delhi, for exactly two years and three months today. Taking whistle-stop work trips cannot be counted as time off, so without a backward glance, hoping that the maid will adhere to ‘a watched kettle never boils’ instructions and manage to hold the fort till I return, have my bags all packed with a deliciously inviting picnic basket to lunch solo at whatever hour when the train chugs up to Shimla, my once-upon-a-time home town. 

 On 25 March 2020, the entire nation was in a lockdown, and for months on end, the only shops visibly open were your neighbourhood grocers or chemist outlets equipped with gallons of sanitisers (available in all possible forms!) soaps, masks, gloves…Yes, prepared for battle. Online schooling, tuitions, dance competitions readying us for the `new normal’ as was the, `more than one can stomach’ rallying cry. Now to stay in line one had to be online, all the time. The outcome: bleary, rheumy eyes, and a fogged-out, blurred brain. Very senior citizens too had to learn to pay their electricity bills and whatnot, online — a different story that their slowed down fingers and cloudy eyes could not catch the OTP numbers fast enough, and it would be an exercise in teary-eyed frustration to go back to the drawing board. And expecting 20-something grandchildren to explain or rather show the steps a second time over, an experience likened to jumping off a plane minus a parachute. 

  Last year, saw salaries being slashed into half for the lucky ones, for many it was, without a day’s notice, retrenchment; with many scurrying here and there for cover under the very roof that housed them. And contrary to popular belief, being huddled together at home, 24X7, was for the family, ‘too close for comfort’. Tempers soared, irritability was at an all-time high and the need for space was never more craved for and with no maids or help, the piles of household work read like a list as long as one’s arm, with a day drawing to a close, and arms still up in work. Here the husband believing that he was being motivational by going idiomatic, with statements such as ‘a calm sea does not make a skilled survivor’ with an incensed ‘better-half’ retorting in the same dialect. Surely one has heard of, ‘a wise head keeps a still tongue’. 

  At a snail’s pace shops lifted their shutters, the air catching wafts of coffee with cafés reopening, parks no longer held a deserted look with children in masks taking to the playground, chaperoned by watchfully cautious grandparents fortified with aerosol cans of sanitisers to spritz over swings and slides. Yes, haltingly, bit-by-bit, semi-normalcy was restored. And in congratulatory tones, we complimented ourselves for beating the pandemic, for managing to overcome it. 

  I shall talk of how we keep breathing in our own carbon dioxide, toxifying our lungs, and with all the aerosol cans spurting sanitised spray the ozone layer slooshing away, on another day. For now — with masks in place — about overhearing conversations to the tune of how despite India’s bursting population we had curtailed the pandemic. Quite unlike scantily populated Europe or the U.K. And the less said of Trump’s America, the better! And Brazil, good Gawd. The multitudes of Covid-19 affected people. The endless deaths on account of it. In Mumbai’s Dharavi — the world’s largest slum — the pandemic had been given a lick. Here, the gloating quite audible. Yes, despite being typecast as a nation with negligible regard for law and order, with us Indians being pigeonholed as carrying a collective chaotic DNA that was meant for breaking rules, had silenced the world. We were on the top of the game, we had dealt with this coronavirus ‘Kaihar’ intelligently — religiously done our share of the compulsive washing of hands and donning face masks while sitting in the rain, train or whether in a moat or boat. And with vaccination to do away with this virus being indigenously manufactured, India stood proud. Then with Bill Gates laudatory comments on how we had succeeded in keeping this disease at bay, we glowed like an expectant mother. Amid these head-to-head exchanges, jokes abounded how steel strong our stomachs were, of our fighting-fit immune system. 

  Then came April and we hear of India’s deadly Second Wave. Maharashtra was quite already in the grip of it. Curfews had been imposed. Followed by a Lockdown of sorts. Then Delhi becomes the world’s Covid-19 capital with Punjab following suit. The second strain had come in from the U.K., and with so many Punjabis living there, and making regular trips back home to their  pind/villages this particular type was bound to be imported…And what with the election roadshows held in West Bengal, with overrunning hordes of mask-free people elbowing each other for foot-space, inhaling the breath belonging to multitudes. The political kingpins, post these gigantesque mass assemblies, such grand exposure to the public, their ‘janata’ return to the Power Centre, and Delhi becomes the Covid-19 megapolis. That said, the showbiz spectacle particularly in Bengal takes the credit for advancing the ill effect of this untamable fiend. 

  With the outbreak of this ‘plague’, this ‘scourge’, 13 months back, places of worship remained, with conscientious zeal, out of bounds. Shut, padlocked till it was safe to pray as a community. Then how is it, that this time around, on 14 April 2021, over 10 lakh devotees took ritualistic baths in the Ganga — wading in all closeness? Last heard, 30 pandits overseeing the rituals had come down with Covid-19. The count of worshippers contracting or succumbing to this ailment is not a five-finger exercise, and so news channels are simply going by the guesswork. The number of pilgrims not enrolled, you see.

  I put this pen down with a heavy heart, and in a bewildered state, question, had we become so smug, so cocksure of having gained an upper hand over this harrowing disease that we thought it is quite fine to roam the roads in swarms, take en masse holy water dips? Had our war-footing vaccination drive inoculated us from better sense? Or was caution thrown to the winds, to mix politics with religion to rake in the votes, to win elections at all costs?

Dr Renée Ranchan writes on socio-psychological issues, quasi-political matters and concerns that touch us all.

Dhaka: Bangladesh has taken a firm decision to close its border with India for the next 14 days following a sharp rise in the country’s Covid-19 cases and deaths. A ban on entry from India has been imposed in line with the instructions of the Prime Minister’s office, Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told Dhaka Tribune on Sunday. On Thursday, a proposal to shut down borders with India was rejected at an inter-ministerial meeting.-Correspondent (With ANI inputs)

The Pathankot Police have arrested three smugglers after they tried to escape after opening fire at a police team deployed at Special Police Checking near Jhakholahri here. The police have also recovered 265 grams of Heroin, one USA made illicit 7.62 mm pistol and five cartridges (two live) besides impounding their Hyundai i20 car.

The arrested persons have been identified as Karandeep Singh alias Karan, Mandeep Singh alias Happy and Hardeep Singh alias Saba, all residents of village Mehma Chak in district Gurdaspur. The incident took place at around 7.40 pm on Saturday evening, when the Police Party led by Incharge CIA Staff Navdeep Singh had laid a trap on criminals and anti-social elements near Jhakholahri in Pathankot.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Pathankot Gulneet Singh Khurana said that while checking vehicles, the police team stopped an i20 Car without a number plate coming from Amritsar side. “There were three persons sitting in the car and the person sitting on the passenger seat fired two bullets straight at the police party and tried to escape, however, they were bravely intercepted by the police team,” he said. The SSP said that the Police team had a narrow escape and is safe, while the three criminals have been taken into custody and further investigations are on. Gulneet Singh said that the preliminary investigations revealed that Karandeep is a history-sheeter and close has links with the smugglers across the International Border in Pakistan.

Karandeep has been facing at least 12 criminal cases, including Murder and Attempt to Murder, under Arms Act and NDPS Act at various Police stations of Amritsar and Gurdaspur districts and he is also wanted in FIR no. 98, dated 20.08.20 under section 21 of the NDPS Act Police Station Special Task Force, SAS Nagar in which 4 kg 210 grams heroin was recovered by STF Amritsar. While, another accused Mandeep Singh has been facing about six criminal cases including of Murder and attempt to Murder and under the Arms Act as well.

In a shocking incident where massive fire broke out at Vijay Vallabh Hospital on Friday, took lives of 15 Covid-19 patients. The state government had ordered an inquiry into the matter. Police on Sunday, arrested the two doctors in connection with the Covid Centre fire tragedy. Two managing doctors of the hospital have been arrested after a preliminary inquiry into the matter. Police has arrested the Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Administrative Officer of the Palghar-based hospital where tragedy took place.

The hospital’s CEO, Dr Dilip Bastimal Shah (56), and CAO Dr Shailesh Dharmadev Pathak (47) were arrested and later produced before a Vasai court which remanded them in police custody for one day. The Arnala Coastal police had booked the hospital management along with medical staff of the hospital under IPC sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 304, 337, 338 (causing hurt by act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life) and 34 (common intention).

According to the officials of Vasai-Virar crime branch, both the managing doctors were held for alleged negligence and violation of the fire safety norms. The hospital failed to get its fire audit conducted for the current year and also did not have the fire department’s No Objection Certificate (NOC), an official said.

The fire broke out on Friday in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) located on the second floor of the four-storey Vijay Vallabh Hospital at Virar in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, about 70 km from Mumbai. There were 90 patients in the hospital, 17 of them in the ICU when the fire broke out after a blast in the AC unit shortly after 3 am. It was extinguished at 5.20 am by then there were several lives lost. Maharashtra government had announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the next of kin of the patients who had died and Rs 1 lakh to the critically injured patients.