Raipur, April 3

The pandemic caused by a new virus may have brought the world to its knees, but that has not deterred a couple in Chhattisgarh to name their newborn twins as ‘Corona’ and ‘Covid’.

The two words may evoke fear and devastation in minds of others, but for the Raipur-based couple they symbolise triumph over hardships as the twins – a boy and a girl – were born during the ongoing coronavirus-enforced nationwide lockdown which has disrupted normal life.

The names, they said, would remind them about all the hardships they conquered amid the lockdown, ahead of a successful delivery on the intervening night of March 26-27 at a government hospital here.

However, the couple said they might change their decision later and rename their kids.

I was blessed with the twins – a boy and a girl – in the early hours on March 27. We have named them Covid (boy) and Corona (girl) for now,” Preeti Verma, the 27-old mother of the newborns, told PTI.

“The delivery happened after facing several difficulties and, therefore, my husband and I wanted to make the day memorable.

“Indeed the virus is dangerous and life-threatening but its outbreak made people focus on sanitation, hygiene and inculcate other good habits. Thus, we thought about these names,” she said, giving reasons for their unusual decision.

“When the hospital staff also started calling the babies as Corona and Covid, we finally decided to name them after the pandemic,” she said.

The couple, originally from Uttar Pradesh, resides in a rented house in the Purani Basti area of the state capital.

“On late night of March 26, I suddenly experienced severe labour pain and somehow my husband arranged an ambulance operated under 102 Mahtari Express service.

“As no vehicular movement was allowed on roads due to the lockdown, we were stopped by police at various places but they let us go after noticing my condition,” Verma said.

I was wondering what would happen in the hospital as it was midnight, but fortunately doctors and other staff were very cooperative,” she said.

“Our relatives, who wanted to reach the hospital, could not make it as bus and train services were stopped due to the lockdown,” said Verma, who already has a two-year-old daughter.

The twins were born in Dr BR Ambedkar Memorial Hospital.

Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the hospital, Shubhra Singh, said the mother and the newborns were discharged recently and they were in good health.

As soon as Verma reached the hospital with her husband, arrangements were made to perform a caesarean section on her as it was a complicated case, Singh said.

“Within 45 minutes of their arrival, the delivery was done successfully,” the PRO said.

The twins had become a centre of attraction in the hospital after the couple named them as Covid and Corona, Singh said. PTI

New Delhi, April 2

The Delhi Police have registered a case against the management committee of the Majnu Ka Tilla gurdwara here for violating lockdown orders and not maintaining social distancing, a senior officer said on Thursday.

A total of 225 people, who wanted to travel to Punjab but were stranded in the national capital due to the lockdown, were staying at the gurdwara.

An FIR was registered at the Civil Lines police station under sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) of the Indian Penal Code, the officer said.

Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) president Manjeet Singh Sirsa said the chief ministers of Delhi and Punjab were duly informed about the people at the gurdwara stranded due to the lockdown and were asked to evacuate them.

It was the government’s duty to provide them shelter. The DSGMC had offered the langar hall of the Majnu ka Tilla gurdwara to set up a quarantine facility around 15 days ago, he said.

“The stranded people were safe in the gurdwara but the Delhi Government shifted them to a school where they are living in unhygienic conditions. Now, they have filed a complaint against the DSGMC which was told to give these people food,” Sirsa added.

The gurdwara will continue to provide food to these stranded people, he asserted. PTI

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Phagwara: The police have adopted a creative way of spreading awareness about Covid. Sub-Inspector Baljinder Singh has sung a song to make people aware of coronavirus. The song is titled “Let the people of my country unite and campaign together on coronavirus”. The song has been written by ASI Pratap Waris. TNS

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 1

Amidst the deployment of its transport fleet in the ongoing battle against the COVID-19, the Air Force is procuring over 55,000 personal decontamination kits (PDKs) that are used for providing immediate protection in a nuclear, biological and chemical contaminated (NBC) environment.

According to IAF sources, the procurement of these kits would be done in a staggered manner by taking into account the IAF’s periodic consumption and the equipment’s shelf life.

Part of the procurement would be to replenish expended stocks and part to build up reserves. Procurement of the entire lot in batches is expected to take up to two years, an officer said.

The IAF has deployed its C-17, C-130 and An-32 transporters to ferry medical supplies and emergency equipment to various parts of the country where they are critically required.

PDKs are small, ready-to-use kits that can be worn on a waist belt or carried in cargo pockets and are used to neutralise chemical, biological or radiological agents and toxic industrial materials

IAF aircraft were also used to evacuate stranded Indian nationals from China and Iraq.

“Since IAF operations require some personnel to come in contact with passengers as well as service providers at various stations in an environment where the threat of virus infection is high,” the need for precautions and being prepared for any situation while working in a biologically contaminated environment cannot be understated,” an officer said.

PDKs are small, ready-to-use kits that can be worn on a waist belt or carried in cargo pockets and are used to neutralise chemical, biological or radiological agents and toxic industrial materials that have accumulated on personnel and equipment while in the field.

While PDKs are not intended to replace a complete decontamination process, they can be used in emergency situations.

A few years ago, the Defence Research and Development Organisation had developed a PDK for the forces, which is now being produced commercially by the private industry.

Exposure to micro-organism and hazardous chemicals is not confined to the armed forces in war, but the civilian population at large too can be adversely affected and can be caught unawares at any time, as the current situation has brought out. All three services have their own full-fledged NBC warfare cells and also have at their disposal an array of equipment and materials to mitigate the threat at a large scale.

The National Disaster Management Authority too has drawn up plans to cater to an NBC disaster.

Deposing before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, General Bipin Rawat said he has been meeting jawans who were asking why this gap was not being narrowed.

New Delhi: Army officers drawing “exceptionally high” disability pension shouldn’t mind paying “a little amount of income tax”, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat has suggested. Deposing before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, the military advisor to the country’s defence minister also said that there was a “wide variation” in the disability pensions of army jawans and officers and that it was “creating heartburn”, which “is not being understood by officers”.

The report of the parliamentary committee, headed by BJP MP Jual Oram, was tabled in Parliament on 13 March. In its report, the committee has asked the Modi government to present a “factual position” and its “clear decision” on the deduction of income tax from disability pensions and communicate it to army personnel, both serving and retired, by 13 April.

This came after top military brass and defence ministry officials, in their depositions to the committee, sought to defend the government’s controversial move to tax disability pensions in June last year. The government backed off early this month but there are still apprehensions about it, as the parliamentary committee flagged in its report.

Apprising the committee of the “wide variation” in the disability pensions of army jawans and officers, General Rawat said he has been meeting jawans who were asking why this gap was not being narrowed.

“So, one of the ways of narrowing this gap is this. Those who are drawing exceptionally high pensions, can they not pay a little amount of income tax? It is not applicable to a jawan because in spite of his disability pension being given to him, he is not coming into the tax bracket of ₹ 5 lakh as per the new tax regime,” the CDS has said in his deposition to the committee.

Also read: Army may recall retd personnel with medical expertise if fight against Covid-19 intensifies 

The pension gap

According to the report of the standing committee, Rawat gave a detailed presentation on the background of the disability pension that is given for battle casualties and also for lifestyle diseases or other issues. It was started during the British regime.

By 1971, there were 157 ‘battle casualty’ pensions. It was revised in 1985 and 1996. After the Sixth Pay Commission, the disability pension became a part of the retiring salary — that is, the last salary drawn at the time of retirement. So, Rawat explained, if the disability is suffered by an officer and also by a jawan, because of the disability becoming a part of the last pay drawn, there is a very wide variation in their pensions for the same disability. For instance, if an officer’s leg and that of a jawan had to be amputated, the difference in their pensions could be as high as “four times”.

In June 2019, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had clarified in a circular that tax exemption for disability pension would be available only to armed forces personnel “who have been invalidated from service on account of bodily disability attributable to or aggravated by such service and not to personnel who have been retired on superannuation or otherwise”. It triggered a controversy, forcing the government to shelve it early this month.

The parliamentary committee noted in its report that the defence ministry had directed the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (PCDA) to stop deducting income tax from disability pensions. “They (the committee), therefore, recommend that the factual position in this regard may be intimated within one month of the presentation of this report and clear decision of the government in this regard should be communicated to all personnel, serving and retired, to obviate any chances of misapprehensions and feeling of soreness amongst them, under intimation to the Committee,” the report reads.

Also read: Three pitfalls of CDS, Dept of Military Affairs and why it should make us sceptical

New Delhi: Even as it prepares to deal with any emergencies due to the Covid-19 crisis, the Army is launching a cyber security exercise this month to assess its operational preparedness in the cyber domain.

In a recent interview to Economic Times, India’s National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC) Lt. Gen. Rajesh Pant had said almost 4,000 fraud portals related to coronavirus have been created across the globe by cyber criminals and mafia organisations in the last two months.

The Army too had, in March, issued an advisory that said targeted campaigns on the theme of coronavirus have been undertaken in the last few weeks by India’s adversaries to compromise email or other accounts and also to infect official or personal IT assets of defence personnel.

Army sources told ThePrint the annual exercise will help assess the defensive cyber security preparedness of the Army, data security and in evaluating compliance to the Army’s existing cyber security policies.

“The exercise is aimed at looking for vulnerabilities in the network and coming out with corrective actions. The exercise will generally help take a relook at the existing procedures, verify if reported issues have been resolved and carry out additional checks to secure the force’s cyber infrastructure,” an Army source said.

While preparations for the exercise had begun last month, it is likely to conclude by November, after which a final report will be prepared, sources said. The exercise was conducted last year too.

Also read: Ready to operate beyond mandate to fight the pandemic: CDS Bipin Rawat

Exercise to evaluate cyber awareness

Defence sources said cyber security exercises, in general, evaluate cyber awareness and precautions taken by every individual in the service apart from strengthening intra service networks from cyber attacks. These include phishing or denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which are a malicious attempt to disrupt normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of Internet traffic.

For three months in 2019, India faced the most cyberattacks in the world, according to a reportreleased by Subex, a Bengaluru-based firm providing analytics to telecom and communication service providers.

The report, released on 27 February, notes that while the US was the most cyber-targeted nation in 2019, India held the top spot in April, May and June.

ThePrint had earlier reported that the Indian Army faced at least 23 cyberattack attempts last year. Lt Gen D.B. Shekatkar (retd), president of the think-tank Centre Knowledge Sovereignty India, had then said there would be an increase in cyberattacks from India’s adversaries in the years to come, which could be “deadlier” than terrorist attacks and can also affect a nuclear facility, or the air traffic control system, the power grid or even disable the war machinery during a war.

Also read: Soldiers failing to disclose Covid-19 information will invite action under Army Act

The Army, Navy and Air Force are putting in place separate measures after the Indian military’s first case of COVID-19 was detected in Leh.

New Delhi: From restricting the entry of veterans and essential civil contractual staff, to staggered langar (meal) timings for troops — the Indian military has put in place strict drills to stop coronavirus from getting into its bases.

The drills are being strengthened after the Army reported its first case of COVID-19 — a 34-year-old jawan in Leh. It has quarantined all soldiers and colleagues of the soldier, who is attached to the Ladakh Scouts Regimental Centre.

A senior Army officer had earlier told ThePrint that the Army is dealing with the outbreak in three stages: Prevention within the force, assistance to the civil administration, and planning for contingencies, which may arise if the coronavirus threat reaches the next stage.

Also read: Military’s isolation camps on standby, Army ready to deploy facilities to fight COVID-19

Why military is being extra cautious

Military bases can accommodate up to a few thousand personnel and their families, living as a community with close interactions.

Thus, in the eventuality of even a single person contracting COVID-19, the spread is likely to be at a faster rate, not just affecting the community, but also operational preparedness, defence sources told ThePrint.

What the Army is doing

Among the multiple measures being put in place, the Army has restricted retired personnel and any civil porters, contractual maintenance workers or vendors into the garrisons. Many of these civilians work regularly in the garrisons.

“Only bare essential movement from within or outside the garrisons is being permitted. Permissions are only being given on a case-to-case basis,” an Army source told ThePrint.

The Army has extended leaves of its personnel across the country until 15 April, and for the limited troops coming back from leave, temporary duties or courses, sources say there are separate quarantine barracks being created with beds and other basic facilities at the unit level.

The returning personnel will have to undergo a two-layered medical screening at field areas — first at transit and then at the units — after which they will be required to spend two weeks in the quarantine barracks. Every barracks will have about 15 to 25 people.

Additionally, isolation barracks are being created for suspected cases with flu-like symptoms, where they will stay put for two days. If their health doesn’t improve, they will be evacuated.

Meals for the troops will also be served barracks-wise at staggered timings, to avoid crowding. Only one designated person will be serving the troops, according to the missive. Personnel have also been advised to restrict visits to places of worship.

This aside, the Army is setting up multiple hand-washing points, minimising congestion in barracks, shutting down non-essential stores and canteens inside the garrison. It will also display instructions, banners, posters and play of audio messages across the units.

“The initial drills set up are being upgraded in minute details. The essence lies in ruthless implementation of the drills set up,” a senior Army officer said.

The Army has also has set up a mechanism to trace contact history by asking each individual to maintain a daily contact log.

Also read: Defence Ministry proposes leasing of military equipment and specialised trial wing

‘Naval dockyards empty’

The Navy, too, is in the process of shutting down offices not considered essential, and enforcing work from home for all officers.

“The men will go into a two-watch system. There will be bare essential manpower required to run the offices,” a senior Navy officer told ThePrint.

The Navy has also restricted the entry of non-uniformed people into dockyards. Since then, the dockyards are virtually empty, given that regular civil staff can’t come in after public transport was stopped, sources say.

Entry of domestic help and guests has also been restricted in the Navy’s residential areas.

Navy personnel who have been on ships deployed in foreign countries will be quarantined for 14 days on return.

“We are still deciding the full modalities of work from home with the security overlays and procedures,” a Navy source said.

IAF restrictions

Sources in the Indian Air Force say regular briefings are being conducted on the measures to be undertaken by its personnel.

The IAF has also restricted manpower at workplaces to 50 per cent, while the other 50 per cent work from home. It has also directed the Director General Medical Services to work out a disinfection plan for office complexes of Air Headquarters.

Also read: Rafale production halts in France due to COVID-19, jets’ delivery to India could be delayed