Lament for days gone by

It seems that men of stature and principles have long ceased to be

control: Politicians have been itching to run the police force for decades. PTI

Julio Ribeiro

SUCHARITA TILAK phoned me from New Jersey, US. She wanted to thank me for not failing to remember her father, Vasant Vinayak Nagarkar, who mentored me when I was sent to Broach (now in Gujarat) in 1955 for my practical training as an ASP. I remember her as a baby. Her father had succeeded SP Karnik, another outstanding officer of the First Regular Recruitment Batch, as the SP of Broach.

I was staying on the outskirts of the town in a bungalow owned by a Parsi resident that had been vacant for a long time. Karnik had arranged this for me. Nagarkar asked me to move in with him and his family into his allotted bungalow, as he wanted to mentor me not only in policing, but also on many ancillary qualities that made a police officer a true servant of the people. At home, and on tour, Nagarkar talked to me of many things — ‘of cabbages and kings’, as Lewis Carroll famously wrote.

To a young man who had spent his first 24 years steeped in the Goan Christian tradition, favoured by the forward castes converted four centuries earlier by the Portuguese, the Maharashtrian Chitpavan Brahmin culture was a revelation. Since the values were similar, I took to it seamlessly. Simplicity in food and clothing, but profundity of thought and ethics in behaviour guided our journey. The time spent together was short; the effect permanent.

I can never forget my old boss and mentor. I told Sucha that one of the lessons he taught me was to be courteous to elected politicians; those in power and those in Opposition. But I was not to support their attempts to place their favoured men in charge of police stations lest corruption was permitted to run amok. Rather, be ready with bag and baggage to move than allow the control of the force to go into non-professionals hands. That would enable them to administer injustice according to their party’s interests or their personal whims, and not according to the law.

How prophetic does this sound to those living in the third decade of the 21st century? In Maharashtra, where a war has been raging between the state’s Home Minister and the now disgraced Police Commissioner, the former has been placing his own favourite officials at cutting-edge positions in the field. An upright DGP, Subodh Jaiswal, preferred to shut shop and move, rather than face the ignominy of leading a force over which he had ceased to have any control, except in name!

The politicians in power have been itching to run the police force for the past three decades. If police chiefs are appointed on a groundswell of lobbying, ignoring merit and professionalism, and even more importantly, integrity, then you have a recipe for disaster. The saga of Sachin Waze is clear proof of the rot that has set in. Commissioners appointed on the basis of patronage have been signing on the dotted line, whenever asked to do so. The cosy relationship between the political boss and the police chief has worked to the detriment of the people – the end users of the service.

When I joined the IPS in 1953, the politicians were different. They respected the ICS/IAS officers and the IP/IPS officers who manned the senior levels of the administration. In return, the officers respected their political masters and ensured that no injustice was meted out to the people at large. The politicians looked at their role as one which shielded those who elected them from misuse of power by the executive. The executive was left to lead and guide the men under their command by placing proper men in the proper slots and overseeing their performance. It worked.

Alas, no longer does this happen. The politicians are more interested in placing those who have paid them or promised them freedom to dictate. The DGP knows each IPS officer personally. He knows what each is capable of. He knows his strengths and weaknesses. Today, the DGP has been reduced to a figurehead. His suggestions and written recommendations are ignored. The politicians in Maharashtra had the temerity to whisper to the press that ‘the DGP’ was interfering in transfers!

Waze was obviously reinstated against all norms of decency, morality and jurisprudence because he was expected to collect funds. He organised the planting of gelatin sticks in a car parked outside Ambani’s house. Surely, the plan was known to the officer he reported to, possibly also the political master. Waze has been reduced to a scapegoat in the entire episode.

The NIA entered the scene initially by subterfuge. A story was floated that a Muslim terror cell in the high security area of Delhi’s Tihar jail had ordered the planting of the car, the gelatin and the threat letter. Now, it has been proved (through newspaper leaks) that Waze planned every detail of the execution of the plan himself. Even the death of an associate in crime, the SUV owner, has now been pinned on him. How low can IPS officers, politicians and Mumbai City cops sink?

I remember my yesteryear bosses with love and admiration. There was no DGP those days. The force was commanded by an IGP. Kaikushro Jehangir Nanavaty was the IGP I liked the most. He was ramrod straight, not only in his physical presence, but also in his dealings with his juniors. He was as just as he was strict. His son, Rustom, was awarded the Sword of Honour at the IMA and rose to be a Northern Army Commander.

They do not make them in that mould anymore. And that is a great pity. So, also, our politicians. The likes of Yashwantrao Chavan are not visible now. And that, too, is a great pity. He was always correct in his dealings with officials, polite but never intimate. No personal wants were mentioned or favours asked. He was absorbed in his politics, of course, but did not involve government officials in this. He enquired about junior IPS officers, but with an eye on their development as servants of the people.

From the ranks of the bureaucracy, if I was asked to pick an officer I admire, it would be Burjor Paymaster, ICS, who was Home Secretary and later Chief Secretary. His sense of justice and fair play was phenomenal. He would go to the extent of protecting junior officers from predatory seniors, if such an occasion arose. It was sheer comfort for new entrants to the service to know that there was a man out there, in the ‘mantralaya’, who you could count on to protect you from injustice.

Today, we live in less genteel times. The politicians, bureaucrats and police leaders seem to have adjusted to a world where throats are routinely cut! What does a 90-plus man, dreaming of the old days, do? Grieve for his grand and great-grandchildren?

*Real experience related to SENIOR CITIZEN SAVING SCHEME (SCSS) DEPOSIT.*

*Banks have been found to looting our hard earned money.*

• *Senior citizens invest in SCSS for better interest rates (always 0.7% higher than PPF) and safety as it is guaranteed by the Goverment of India.*

*However, fraud starts when the deposit holder dies and nominee/legal heir is forced to close the deposit by the law.*

• *Few Banks treat such closure as premature closure of deposits*
• *These banks therefore refund the original  deposit money after deducting penalty.*

• *This deduction is the fraud* and most accept this deduction as genuine deduction as they lack the knowledge or they don’t have time to follow up with authorities.

• *Income Tax website clearly mentions rules governing SCSS deposit. *Sub Section 5 of Rule 8, clearly states that no penalty deduction shall apply in case the deposit holder dies.The original gazette notification for this SCSS scheme is 490 (E).*

Some one has just *experienced this fraudulent deduction from BANK OF INDIA KANDIVALI (W) station branch, Mumbai*. He fought for about 45 days with the bank with e-mails to higher authorities, personal visits and twitter tagging. *Eventually he received about Rs. 9,500 back from the bank that was deducted as penalty treating the SCSS deposit closure as premature despite the fact that the closure was due to death of the deposit holder.*

Just imagine how many SCSS deposit holders must be dying every year and amount that banks may be deducting as penalty for closure!

*Update your information on such schemes. Be aware.*  We request all RETIREES ASSOCIATIONS & FEDERATIONS,  & individuals, to take up the matter with finance ministries and IBA & CEO OF all banks to issue, IMMEDIATELY, circular to STOP this unjust & cruel penality to widow of deceased depositor.

Representational photo

Amarjot Kaur
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, March 31

To amplify the voice of farmers against the three agro-market laws, a group of former bureaucrats, including two Padam Shri awardees, and former Army persons, have come together to form Kirti Kisan Forum in the city.

So far, the group has written a letter in connection with farmers protest to the President of India and organised a seminar on the three farm laws at Punjab Kala Bhawan auditorium this month in the city, apart from donating beds and books at the Sighu border in January.

“We even met farmer leaders and members of Samyukt Kisan Morcha on January 31. They didn’t ask us for anything, except to spread awareness about the three laws and the adverse affect they will have on country’s farmers,” says Padam Shri SS Boparai, former Vice-Chancellor, Punjabi University, Patiala.

“The forum’s main concern are farmers, who have been battling financial adversities and are mostly in debt already,” he adds.

“You must be wondering how we ‘ji janaabs’ got together to form this forum,” says IAS (retd) Kulbir Singh. “I had posted a viral video of my brother, who is paralysed and was waving the Kisan Union flag to show support to farmers, who are protesting at the Delhi border. That started the conversation about farmer protests on our WhatsApp group,” he adds.

Padam Shri awardee RI Singh, who is also the former Chief Secretary, Punjab, explains, “We, retired bureaucrats have a WhatsApp group where we keep expressing our views on issues, policies and decisions that impact economy and society. It’s a freelance commentary, but for farmers we thought of going beyond just commenting. To build public opinion it was important to have a forum that allows debate and discussion, formulate a firm opinion and then project it.

Formed originally, through conversations on WhatsApp, Kirti Kisan Forum was conceptualised on December 20, last year.

“We had a meeting on February 9, which was attended by many former IPS, IAS officers and were also joined by ex-Army men along with many influential people at Kisan Bhawan. At first we were analysing what farmers needed at Singhu border and other protest points near Delhi, So, we took books in January. Then, we took beds for farmers,” says Boparai.

A country that lifted 271 million people out of poverty between 2004 and 2014 is today staring at the spectre of a growing income and wealth inequality. (Photo: PTI)

One thing that stood out during the recently concluded budget session of Parliament was how ministers of the Union kept parroting ad nauseam “It is not the business of government to do business”. It left me wondering as to whether they really even understood the full import or implications of their utterances.

I could not help wondering every time the above proposition was articulated that the next inevitable and portentous consequence would be that it no longer would remain the business of government to be in government. By the time the grand garage sale of India’s public assets would be over economic and, by extension, political power would have become so intensely concentrated in the hands of chaebols and oligarchs that they would be the real overlords of India giving even the American gilded age a run for its money.  

No government would in future either be able to challenge them meaningfully or deliver public goods and services for the teaming millions who make up the bulk of our populace and require them most.

The Gilded Age, 1870-1899, was a period in American history when a few people through gross chicanery and outright sophistry became vulgarly wealthy in a very short span of time.

The eminence grise of the gilded age were the quick-rich moguls namely John D. Rockefeller, Andrew W. Mellon, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Flagler, Henry H. Rogers, J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt and John Jacob Astor. However, in the popular imagination of American people, they are still the robber barons who had become affluent through illegitimate means.

The later iterations of the gilded age have been periods in the history of nations when public assets created out of public money have been privatised on a mega scale.

The person who really put wheels under this large-scale privatisation of public assets in the penultimate decade of the twentieth century was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

On becoming the Premier in May 1979, she sold off steelmakers, carmakers, aerospace firms, oil and gas giants, airlines and the telecoms’ monopoly in the face of robust protests by well-meaning and sober public intellectuals, and even the directly impacted workers of these former state-owned enterprises. Even public housing was pawned of the tenants who lived in it.

However, in the ultimate analysis, this privatisation turned out to be more of a societal shock, rather than therapy for an ailing economy. It was a violent act of economic engineering enforced by resorting to the coercive powers of the state. Its social implications were colossal. Short-sighted un-egalitarian, and antithetical to the notion of public investment, it did not lay the underpinnings for either sustainable or pervasive prosperity. It was a chimera.

In fact, a 2005 study by economists Blanden, Gregg and Machin found that; “The rapid increase in UK income inequality that began in 1979 is sometimes justified by the argument that society is now more meritocratic so that it is easier for the poor to become richer if they are willing and able to work hard. In fact, our research shows that the opposite has occurred — there has actually been a fall in the degree of social mobility over recent decades.

Children born to poor families are now less likely to break free of their background and fulfill their potential than they were in the past. Thus the only enduring legacy of the Thatcher years was that while the rich became richer the poor became poorer.”

Post the collapse of the Soviet Union in the mid and late 1990s, Russian President Boris Yeltsin launched a ruthless privatisation programme of the Soviet created and commanded economic model incubated public sector. In what became the hugest disposal ever of state-owned property, history enterprises were sold at a rate of over eight hundred per month. By time the process ended 77 per cent of Russia’s large and mid-size organizations and 82 per cent of the small ones were transferred to private owners. These 15,000 privatised assets accounted for two-thirds of industrial output and over 60 per cent of the industrial workforce of Russia, the official successor state of the Soviet Union.  

The auctions conducted to privatise these assets were completely rigged. The most lucrative enterprises did not even come up at these public sales. These were either simply farmed out to favoured businesspersons or were disposed of through opaque processes.

Productive establishments and other precious assets were simply pawned off at a fraction of their worth. A tiny clique of oligarchs and carpetbaggers simply took over much of Russia’s economy and became filthy rich. They snapped up valuable state assets at rock bottom prices. More often than not oligarchs just stripped their acquirements of all value simply leaving a shell of a company behind.  

They acquired natural resources and then re-sold them at hefty premiums and parked the money abroad. Another favoured modus operandi was the acquisition of majority shareholding invaluable state properties. Having achieved that goal the minority shareholders that more often than not was the Russian State or provincial governments became putty in their hands. The bottom line was not wealth generation but wealth extraction.  

As a consequence, billions of dollars of public money found its way into private hands as unearned income. The result was that there was hyperinflation, the bottom dropped out of the Russian currency and ordinary people were forced into the most extreme form of destitution. It was a plight far worse than even the years of Communism.

Similarly in India today there are capitalists who are benefiting from a very similar modus operandi. They are “growing fatter” by the hour cornering public assets at basement prices aided and abetted actively by a collusive state. Airports, airlines, public sector units, power utilities are all being put on the chopping block under a fallacious construct that it is not the business of government to be in business. The consequences of such an ill-conceived strategy in the name of privatisation and disinvestment would haunt India for decades to come.

A country that lifted 271 million people out of poverty between 2004 and 2014 is today staring at the spectre of a growing income and wealth inequality. Even before the pandemic hit India in all its ferocity India’s richest one per cent held more than four-times the wealth held by 953 million people who make up for the bottom 70 per cent of the country’s population.

If there is a time to revisit the fundamental construct it is now. It must be reemphasised with all the force at our command that it is indeed the business of government to be in business or there would be hell to pay in the years ahead.

Tags: privatisation of public assets by bjp, vsp privatisation, india’s privatisation, lic privatisation, airports, airlines, public sector units, power utilities privatisatrion

For representation only. File photo

Srinagar, March 31

A Border Roads Organisation (BRO) personnel died after a snow avalanche hit a vehicle near Zojilla Pass on Srinagar-Leh highway on Wednesday, officials said.

Ghulam Rasool Bhat, working as a driver with Project Beacon of the BRO, died after an avalanche hit a beacon vehicle near Zojilla, the officials said.

They said Bhat was buried under the avalanche and his body was retrieved by police and BRO personnel. — PTI

A handout picture released by the Suez Canal Authority on 25 March shows an Egyptian officials checking the operation trying to free Taiwan-owned cargo MV Ever Given (Evergreen). AFP

Regime-insecurity is the principal driver of the asymmetric and indecipherable Chinese government’s behaviour. Since defeating the Kuomintang (KMT) or the Chinese Nationalist Party at the end of the civil war in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has helmed one of the longest-running single-party regimes in modern history. It is arguably the most sophisticated regimes that deploys a complex admixture of repression, censorship, propaganda, technology and nationalism to overcome any threat to its perceived legitimacy.

The widely-believed transformation from one of the world’s poorest countries to among the biggest economies on earth (lifting over half a billion Chinese out of poverty) has denied public space and rationale for any counter-revolution. But externally, where the CCP’s power to control the narrative is beyond its control, it remains skittish, hypersensitive and proactive to take preemptive measures. These carefully-calibrated plans are borne out of deep introspection, scenario imagination and perspective planning.

What plays out thereafter is a slew of relentless investments under the Military-Industrial Complex framework, expansionist tendencies and the sovereign bankrolling — executed cleverly by remaining deliberately vague, practicing realpolitik and often doing so, counter-intuitively. Reading Beijing confounds pundits of diplomacy, as Beijing plans decades ‘ahead of demand’, and that strategic forethought typically challenges the tenure-linked leaderships, in the fast-revolving doors of democracies.

China rarely sleeps, it watches ever global changes very intently.

US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley remarked, “China went to school on us” in an allusion to the Chinese learning lessons from watching the US conduct wars in West Asia. He added, “They watched us very closely in the First Gulf War, the Second Gulf War. They watched our capabilities. And in many ways, they have mimicked those, and they have adopted many of the doctrines and organisations.”

The CCP also monitored the political-societal unrest following the so-called Arab Spring (just as it had conducted a massive study to understand the causes of the Soviet Union collapse) and prematurely snubbed any portent of a potential Jasmine Revolution by getting ahead of events and controlling the narrative. The most significant strategic punt to stay ahead-of-the-curve, is the $1 trillion outflow-led, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a hyper-connectivity and ‘cooperation’ gambit that seeks to unleash the Chinese footprint and facilitate covert expansionism, by securing multiple arterial options beyond the existing infrastructural routes and vulnerabilities, for the existing to-and-fro.

One acutely imagined vulnerability for the Chinese was coined as the Malacca Dilemma in 2003, by then-Chinese president Hu Jintao. This ultra-narrow and practically unavoidable marine strait sustains the Chinese juggernaut of the mammoth energy-guzzling Military-Industrial Complexes on the Chinese mainland, and opens perilously close to the southern tip of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

This potentially offers a practical ‘choke-point’ to India, to potentially enforce military measures to block these supply lines that are critical to China’s energy and commerce, hence regime-sustenance. Expectedly, China moved quickly and created a viable Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and started building oil pipelines (eg Kazakhstan-China Pipeline, Eastern Siberian Pacific Ocean Pipeline, Myanmar-Yunnan Pipeline, Gwadar-Xinjiang Pipeline etc) — besides, other BRI imperatives like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which physically connects Gwadar port in Balochistan to mainland China, through interlinkages of infrastructural projects.

So far, all alternatives are in various stages of development and the pandemic pressures have ebbed the appetite to invest as aggressively, as originally envisaged. Till then, Malacca Straits is a geopolitical sweet-spot/nightmare of a ‘choke-point’ that till now, was only imagined — but, the ensuing spectre of giant container ship MV Ever Given stuck sideways, that ran aground in the narrow Suez Canal that cuts between the African continent and the Sinai Peninsula, is Doomsday 1.0.1 for the Chinese, playing out in chilling reality.

The virtual maritime jam, re-routing of ships and the colossal financial damages caused by this Suez Canal ‘choke’ is a real-time experience, of inevitable helplessness, in such situations. Obviously the context of the choke-point is literally and physically choke-able in the single-lane stretches (for about six kilometres) of the Suez Canal – and the same physical ‘narrowness’ is not applicable in the Malacca Straits (given the narrowest stretch is one-and-a-half kilometres wide), however the same dynamic of the ‘choke’ is potentially enforceable with Indian Navy ships positioned at the mouth of the Malacca Straits. Less than 20,000 ships pass the Suez Canal annually or about 12 percent of world trade, whereas the stakes at the Malacca Straits are substantially higher with at least 1,00,000 ships traversing through the narrow straits.

Wedged diagonally, Ever Given, longer than four football fields has remained unexcavated for nearly a week with the global might of technology, resources and investments to remedy the situation. Interestingly and expectedly, China has enthusiastically joined the global efforts to support the efforts to dislodge the ship — China could well be using this opportunity ‘to go to school’ on managing such choke-points, something that has haunted its imagination and fueled its alternative plans, for long.

While the Chinese account for only 10 percent of the value that passes through the Suez Canal, they also realise that this is a non-hostile and inadvertent ‘choke’ that impacts the entire global supply chain — what could happen in Malacca Straits in an belligerent mode, could be decidedly more complex. Unlike the Suez Canal crisis, where the Chinese benefit from the only international power-projection outpost of Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) base at Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, further down the Red Sea — the geography surrounding Malacca Straits offers no such base of consequence within SOS reach.

The current outreach of the Chinese navy is effectively limited to the restive South China Seas, as it has yet to acquire Blue-Water-Force capabilities and the recent coalescing of the Sino-wary Quad (US, Japan, India and Australia) do not augur well for Beijing, either. India’s still conceptual/posturing ‘Tri-Service Command’ at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands can be given meaningful bite with additional reinforcements and supplements.

Already the theatre has witnessed many interoperability naval exercises with many ‘friendly’ nations joining hands in a symbolic show of strength and intent. The exact theatre of concern for the Chinese and the invaluable lever of ‘choke’ for the Sino-wary forces, is Malacca Straits. But the Chinese are past masters in learning lessons at others’ expense and in this latest incident playing out in the Suez Canal, the Chinese would be drawing up crucial lessons for what President Xi Jinping calls ‘comprehensive national strength’, which is predicated on China operating on its own terms, without any ‘choke’.

The author is former Lieutenant-Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Puducherry

Photo for representational purpose only. iStock

Banihal/Jammu, March 31

An Army chopper with eight persons on board made an emergency landing on Wednesday in Ramban after developing some technical snag, a police officer said.

PD Nitya, SSP, Ramban, said all passengers were safe and the chopper later left for its destination after the fault was rectified. Officials said a patient was among the passengers on board the chopper who was being airlifted to Army base hospital in Udhampur. The chopper made the emergency landing at the district police lines, Ramban. “The ALH helicopter of Srinagar-based 15 Corps was on its way to Udhampur from Mansbal in Bandipora and made the emergency landing at 10.45 am. — PTI

epresentational image of Indian and French flags | Wikimedia CommonsText Size: A- A+

New Delhi: France, which has emerged as one of the closest strategic partners of India in recent years, is looking at bilateral business growth beyond defence by focusing on energy and technology, said an Indo-French trade body.

While defence has been a key element in bilateral trade, according to the Indo-French Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IFCCI), the share of aviation and aeronautics has fallen to 30 per cent in 2020, from 50 per cent in 2019.

However, it is not clear if the dip also includes the defence sector since the chamber does not maintain the numbers in that regard.

“Traditionally, it is true that a big chunk of Indo-French economic ties have been defence and aerospace. Now, we see a number of industries doing so well and coming into limelight, even if we take the last two years,” Payal S. Kanwar, director-general of IFCCI, told ThePrint in an interview.

She said there is an increased focus in the clean energy and digital sectors, and these are the fields where the French can offer more.https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.447.1_en.html#goog_1793468704

France is a significant source of FDI in India with more than 1,000 French establishments already present in the country.

According to the official figures, France is the ninth largest foreign investor in India with a cumulative investment of $9.67 billion from April 2000 to September 2020, which represents 1.93 per cent of the total FDI inflows.

The highest FDI equity inflows are in the services sector (19.22 per cent), with cement and gypsum products (10.05 per cent) in the second place, followed by air transport, including air freight, (8.13 per cent), petroleum and natural gas (7.70 per cent) and electrical equipment (5.74 per cent).

Also read: 3 more Rafale jets take off for India from France

‘France is largest European employer in India’

Giving details of the new investments, Kanwar said these included Schneider Electric’s $2 billion acquisition of L&T’s electrical business, Total’s announcement of $2.5 billion in Adani Green Energy Limited, and French airport operator Groupe ADP carrying out a 49 per cent buyout of GMR’s airport business.

“Right now, in terms of French investment in India, it is currently about $9 billion, which has actually quadrupled in the last 10 years. France is also the largest European employer in the country with 3.5 lakh jobs with very few expats,” Kanwar said.

She added that what she sees at the chamber level is “expanded footprints within the country”.

“We see new plants, R&D centres coming up. French companies are quite bullish on India,” she said.

According to official figures, in 2020, the India-France bilateral trade stood at 9.04 billion Euros, a drop of 21.99 per cent as compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. This downfall could be due to the Covid.

India’s exports to France in the period were valued at 4.80 billion Euros, down by 22.9 per cent in the corresponding period. Indian imports from France decreased by 20.95 per cent to 4.23 billion Euros.

‘It is not going to be a cakewalk’

Kanwar said while companies do face challenges, the situation has improved under the Narendra Modi government.

“We all know it is not going to be a cakewalk,” she said, adding that GST was an issue for some companies, and customs and import duties for others.

Kanwar said the common issue was with regard to labour and land acquisition laws. However, the French industry welcomes the Modi government’s efforts to streamline these issues, she said. 

(Edited by Debalina Dey)

Also read: India, France to hold annual dialogue on bilateral issues on 7 January, says MEA

Women harvest wheat in a field in Sangrur.

Parvesh Sharma

Tribune News Service

Sangrur, April 1

The agitation of farmers against the farm laws has brought a major change in the harvest season, with educated youths, including postgraduates and graduates, heading to fields to harvest the crop.

“I will not attend my IELTS classes for next 20 days as I need to supervise the harvest of our wheat crop on 16 acres. My father has been in Delhi since the agitation began,” said Bhupinder Singh, a youngster.

Ready for bigger role

Women in almost all villages are ready to play a bigger role in harvest this time. We do not want to call back our male members from the protest at Delhi borders. — Balbir Kaur, Sangrur resident

Many educated women have already started the manual harvest. “Since I did not get leave, today both my daughters, Maninder Kaur and Parmjit Kaur, who are law graduates, along with labourers harvested wheat on our one and half acres in our native Bhutal Kalan village,” said a government employee.

China on Monday donated 800,000 doses of anti-COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal

hoto for representation.

Kathmandu, March 29

The Indian Army has gifted one lakh doses of India-made anti-COVID-19 vaccines to the Nepal Army as part of the efforts of the militaries of the two neighbours to enhance bilateral cooperation.

The vaccines were handed over by the Indian Army officials to their counterparts from the Nepal Army at the Tribhuvan International Airport on Sunday, the Indian Embassy here tweeted.

“100,000 doses of #MadeInIndia COVID-19 vaccine gifted by Indian Army to the Nepali Army were received at Tribhuvan Airport,” the mission tweeted.

India has previously gifted one million doses of ‘Made in India’ COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal for the immediate requirement of Nepal’s healthcare and front-line workers.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1376187960475848716&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tribuneindia.com%2Fnews%2Fnation%2Findian-army-donates-1-lakh-covid-19-vaccine-doses-to-nepal-army-

Meanwhile, China on Monday donated 800,000 doses of anti-COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal, according to media reports here.

The Vero cell vaccines, which arrived at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), was handed over by the Chinese ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi to the Minister for Health and Population (MoHP) Hridayesh Tripathi during a ceremony organised for the occasion, The Himalayan Times reported.

Even though China had pledged to provide 800,000 doses, initially 500,000 and then later 300,000, to Nepal, the consignment was brought to Kathmandu on Monday by a Nepal Airlines Corporation plane that had flown to Beijing on Sunday.

The vaccine is developed by Sinopharm, an affiliate of state-backed pharmaceutical company Sinopharm.

The Department of Drug Administration (DDA) under Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population, had approved the Chinese-made ‘Vero Cell’ vaccine for emergency use against COVID-19 in Nepal, on February 17.

Following a delay in procurement of Covishield vaccines by the Serum Institute in India, Nepal had suspended the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination drive, My Republica news portal reported.

Nepal has suspended its vaccination drive after inoculating a little over 1.7 million people in two phases until March 15, The Kathmandu Post reported.

Nepal has reported 276,839 cases of coronavirus and 3,027 deaths related to the disease. PTI