Ravi Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service
Gurdaspur, March 28

Even as officials are fighting a grim battle against Covid, Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Ishfaq is having a tough time tackling weird calls, with residents waking him up at odd hours to fulfil their demands, a majority of which are “illogical and irrational”.

Minister gets call in dead of night

Cabinet Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa was also a receiver of one such call and that too in the dead of the night from a resident of Dera Baba Nanak, the Assembly seat he represents. “Mantri ji, sade ghar noodles khatam hogaye ne. Kuch kar deyo please” (minister sahib, there are no noodles in our house. Please do something.)

At 4.15 am today, Ishfaq, who slept well past midnight after presiding over a high-level meeting on how to put an end to rumour-mongering, was woken up by a call on his mobile by a woman who demanded that curd be sent to her house immediately “as her husband had a hangover”.

“DC sahib, kal rat mere gharwale ne daru zyada pi lee te dahi mere ghar bhej do” (Sir, last evening my husband overdrank, so please send curd to my place),” she said.

Fifteen minutes later, the DC received a video of a man unabashedly crying and claiming that despite repeated reminders to grocery store owners, he was not supplied ration. The DC got in touch with the police and food supplies officials, who in turn visited the house of the “aggrieved man”.

When the officials reached the man’s house, they were taken aback to see a room fully stacked with a dozen large boxes of ration items. They then reported the matter to the DC, who rang up the man to know the truth. The reply he got was, “DC sahib, eh ration tan main apne munde de viah layee rakhiya hai. Sade pandit ji ne keha hai ki viah to pehlan isnu hath nahi lagana” (this ration is for my son’s wedding. Our priest has asked us not to touch it before the wedding day).”

Officials from the Food and Civil Supplies Department claimed that every day, a number of people called them up saying “Sade ghar adhrak khatam hogya” (we do not have ginger in our house), “Bache Maggi mangde ne” (children are asking for Maggi)).

Cabinet Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa was also a receiver of one such call and that too in the dead of the night from a resident of Dera Baba Nanak, the Assembly seat he represents. “Mantri ji, sade ghar noodles khatam hogaye ne. Kuch kar deyo please” (minister sahib, there are no noodles in our house. Please do something).

Raman Bahl, chairman of the Punjab State Subordinate Services Selection Board, distributed 300 ration kits. Real estate dealer Manjit Singh Dala has sent a message on social media, asking residents to contact him if they needed anything.

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 5

All military exercises which the Indian armed forces conduct with militaries of other countries have been suspended till further orders due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The Ministry of Defence in consultation with the Ministry of External Affairs had planned more than 50 exercises during 2020. “Everything has been put on hold till further orders,” said a senior functionary, adding that even after the covid scare goes away it will take some time for militaries to start re-engaging with each other. Assets like warships, planes and helicopters and combat manpower of each country have been diverted to oversee the crisis.

There’s no scope for even conducting the planning conferences which are prelude to conducting a exercise. The calendar for exercises will have to redrawn; some exercises will be expectedly curtailed while others will have to be ‘postponed’. Countries will have to commit assets and also be sure that the host country is free from Covid.

The scheduled list for 2020 included several bilateral exercises with countries like US, Russia China, France, UK, Israel, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Malaysia, Nepal, among others.

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 2

The Ministry of Defence has mobilised retired personnel of the armed forces to carry out some tasks in the fight against Covid. Also the services of the National Cadet Corps have been okayed.

The Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare in the MoD has taken the initiative to mobilise services of ex-servicemen community as a part of augmentation of human resource to assist the state and district administration.

The retired armed forces personnel — some 26 lakh — remain connected with their regiments, squadrons, ship-mates and course mates. Also uniquely, only retired servicemen have a dedicated department for their welfare.

Rajya Sainik Boards and Zila Sainik Boards are playing a dynamic role in identifying and mobilising maximum ESM volunteers to assist the state and district administration in performing public outreach activities such as contact tracing, community surveillance, management of quarantine facilities or any such tasks assigned to them.

The ESM are disciplined, motivated and well trained to operate in adverse situations and they have pan-India presence in all districts and villages across the country.

In Punjab, an organisation, called ‘Guardians of Governance’, comprising 4,200 ESM is assisting in data collection from all the villages.

The Chhattisgarh Government has employed some ESM to assist the police. Similarly, in Andhra Pradesh, all District Collectors have asked for ESM volunteers.

NCC cadets to help in relief efforts

• The National Cadet Corps (NCC) has extended the services of cadets — above 18 years of age — to augment relief efforts and functioning of various agencies involved in battling Covid
• The tasks envisaged for NCC cadets include manning of helpline, call centres, distribution of relief material, medicines, food, essential commodities, community assistance, data management and traffic management

Chandigarh, April 4

His last meeting with the family was just a few minutes long—the time it takes to have a cup of tea. And this was sipped outside the front door.

Dr Gurpal Kataria is posted at Punjab government hospital in Nawanshahr, a coronavirus hotspot. The front line doctor and his team are taking care of the 18 infected patients admitted at the isolation ward there.

The doctor has little time now to visit his family in Jalandhar, 60 km away. He keeps in touch over the phone but the last, brief visit was two weeks back.

“I did not enter the home as a precautionary measure, just saw them and then returned on duty,” he says.

Kataria’s wife is a dentist at the Hoshiarpur civil hospital.

“My daughter, who has taken the class 10 exams, always tells me to take care. She also feels proud that her parents are serving people,” he says.

Nawanshahr has reported 19 coronavirus cases so far, the highest number from any district in Punjab where the count was 53 on Saturday morning.

A 70-year-old patient has died in Nawanshahr. Eighteen others, including a two-and-a-half-year-old child and three women, are in the isolation ward of the civil hospital, waiting for the day their tests results show negative.

Kataraia says a major concern is the patients’ morale. They often ask doctors about the coronavirus count, worrying how many people have died each day.

“For us this is like a place of worship, where we get a sense of satisfaction when we see happiness on the faces of our patients,” says the 54-year-old doctor.

“We counsel our patients on a regular basis and tell them there is no need to be scared, and they will be fine. We try to keep them in positive frame of mind and keep their morale high,” Kataria says. “We do not let them feel that they are stuck here.” “When they go back from here, they will certainly remember us,” he says.

He says all arrangements are in place at the government hospital to deal with any coronavirus eventuality. Medical teams are on standby, in case there is a spike.

Kataria’s own team—which includes a microbiologist, a rural medical officer, a pharmacist and a lab technician—stays in houses within the hospital complex.

“I and my team are available round the clock here,” he tells PTI over the phone.

Kataria got his MD degree from the Amritsar government medical college. His experience at the time of swine flu outbreak in 2009 has helped him in dealing with the coronavirus cases, he says. PTI

New Delhi, April 3

The Editors Guild of India has said it is “deeply perturbed” over the government blaming the media in the Supreme Court for causing panic among migrant workers, leading to their exodus in the wake of the lockdown, and asserted that such actions could obstruct the process of dissemination of news.

In a strongly-worded statement, the Guild said blaming the media at this juncture can only undermine the current work being done by it under trying circumstances.

“The Editors Guild of India is deeply perturbed over the recent government statement before the Supreme Court putting the blame on the media for causing panic among migrant workers leading to their mass movement in the wake of the lockdown,” the statement said.

This led the apex court to observe that while it didn’t want to inhibit the debate on the pandemic in any way, the media should refer to and publish the official version of the developments pertaining to the coronavirus pandemic, the Guild said in the statement issued Thursday night.

The Guild stated that it holds the court in the highest respect, but finds this advice “gratuitous and unnecessary”.

Such charges can also obstruct in the process of dissemination of news during an unprecedented crisis facing the country, it said.

“No democracy anywhere in the world is fighting the pandemic by gagging its media,” it said.

The Guild also hit out at the lodging of a First Information Report against the Editor-in-Chief of the website TheWire.

“A police action in the form of an FIR under criminal laws at this stage is an overreaction and an act of intimidation,” the Guild said.

Any such intimidation of the media or blaming the media for mass migration of workers will be counterproductive, it said, adding that such actions will be tantamount to disabling the messenger.

“The Guild believes for sure that the media must be responsible, free and fair. But such interference can only undermine those goals,” the statement said.

Taking a serious note of the panic caused among migrant workers due to fake news, the top court had earlier this week said it expects the media including print, electronic and social to maintain a strong sense of responsibility and ensure that “unverified news” with regard to coronavirus pandemic is not disseminated.

The Supreme Court had said the migration of a large number of labourers working in the cities was triggered by panic created by fake news that the lockdown would continue for more than three months. —PTI

Madrid, April 2

Confirmed coronavirus cases approached one million around the world on Thursday as Europe reeled from the pandemic and the US prepared for what President Donald Trump warned would be “horrific” days ahead.

The virus claimed thousands more lives in its relentless march across the globe, including nearly 1,000 new deaths in Spain, despite more than half of the planet subjected to some form of lockdown.

And it continued to wreak havoc on the global economy, with Spain reporting its biggest monthly increase in jobless claims on record and the US expected to reveal more massive job losses.

Since emerging in China in December, COVID-19 has infected more than 940,000 people—including at least 500,000 in Europe—and claimed more than 47,000 lives, according to a tally by AFP from official sources.

World Health Organisation head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there had been a “near exponential growth” in new cases over the past five weeks and a doubling of deaths in the past week alone.

“In the next few days we will reach one million confirmed cases and 50,000 deaths,” he told a virtual news conference on Wednesday, warning that Africa and Latin America needed to be prepared for a wider impact.

New figures on infection rates and virus-related deaths would show on Thursday whether there were signs the epidemic could be peaking in Europe, where at least 34,000 have died.

Britain and France both reported their highest daily death tolls on Wednesday, but infection rates in Italy and Spain—the two countries hardest hit—were slowing.

Spain said on Thursday it had suffered a record 950 deaths in 24 hours, bringing the total number of fatalities to 10,003.

The number of confirmed cases passed the 110,000 mark, the government said, although the rates of both new infections and deaths continued a downward trend.

“The data show the curve has stabilised” and the epidemic has entered a “slowdown” phase, Health Minister Salvador Illa said.

Spain, the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy, also registered a leap of 302,265 jobless claims last month after imposing a nationwide lockdown since March 14.

The virus has chiefly affected the elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions, but recent cases have highlighted that it can kill people from all walks of life.

The dead have included a 16-year-old in France, a 12-year-old in Belgium and Ismail Mohamed Abdullah, 13, in Britain, whose family said the “gentle and kind” boy had no underlying health issues.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, himself in isolation after testing positive, announced plans for a massive increase in virus testing after it emerged that just 2,000 of hundreds of thousands of staff in the state-run National Health Service (NHS) had been tested.

The United States, which now accounts for almost a quarter of reported global infections, saw its death toll pass 5,000 by the early hours of Thursday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Among the latest known US fatalities was a six-week-old baby who was taken to a Connecticut hospital late last week.

“Testing confirmed last night that the newborn was COVID-19 positive,” the state’s Governor Ned Lamont tweeted. “This is absolutely heartbreaking.”

Trump, who was criticised for initially playing down the virus but has stepped up containment efforts in recent days, warned that the situation was going to get much worse.

“We’re going to have a couple of weeks, starting pretty much now, but especially a few days from now, that are going to be horrific,” he said.

“But even in the most challenging of times, Americans do not despair. We do not give in to fear.” More than three-quarters of Americans are under lockdown, including tens of thousands of prisoners, who were told Wednesday they would be confined to their cells for two weeks.

Officials also shuttered the Grand Canyon to prevent tourists gathering there, and New York announced that outdoor basketball courts would be closed as the city grapples with sky-rocketing infections and a severely strained health system.

The US Labor Department was due on Thursday to provide weekly figures on first-time claims for unemployment benefits after last week’s report showed a record 3.3 million filed claims.

Economists are warning that US job losses could surge to the previously unimaginable range of 10 to 20 million in April.

The virus and the measures taken to contain it have raised fears of the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

It has also claimed the lives of many high-profile figures, including on Wednesday jazz legend Ellis Marsalis, whose family said the “giant of a musician and teacher” died at the age of 85 after contracting the virus. — AFP

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