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Hindustan Times June 01, 2020 Niyati Singh India has raised the price at which it could buy new-season summer crops, including rice by up to 50%, farm minister told a news conference after a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The government announces the so-called minimum support prices (MSPs) for various crops to set a benchmark. But state agencies buy limited quantities of staples such as rice and wheat at those prices, restricting the benefits of guaranteed prices to only around 7% of the country’s 263 million farmers, according to various studies. But the government has decided to raise the support price by up to 50% to support farmers reeling from an extended lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Still, local differences are growing deeper, with officials from the substantially virus-free South threatening to turn away citizens from Lombardy, Italy’s richest and most populous region, where new cases continue to be reported. Lines for r...

Hindustan Times June 02, 2020 Rajesh Jayaswal The upward revision of MSME definition is broadly on the lines of that detailed in the Rs 21 lakh crore Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-reliant India Initiative) package announced on May 13, but for one change – the turnover limit of“medium manufacturing and service units have been further raised to Rs 250 crore, according to an official statement. The cabinet on Monday approved the expanded definition of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and finalised modalities for the Rs 20,000 crore subordinate debt for stressed units, and Rs 50,000 crore fund to boost growth of the sector—moves that will help more companies benefit from a package announced for small and medium companies, and also relieve the financial stress on them. The upward revision of MSME definition is broadly on the lines of that detailed in the Rs 21 lakh crore Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-reliant India Initiative) package announced on May 13, but for one change – the...

Hindustan Times June 01, 2020 Niyati Singh Eliot Engel, chairman of the powerful US House foreign relations committee, on Monday, slammed Chinese “aggression” for continuing tensions along the border with India, adding to growing US support for India in this dispute. “I am extremely concerned by the ongoing Chinese aggression along the Line of Actual Control on the India-China border.,” Engel, a Democrat, said in a statement. “China is demonstrating once again that it is willing to bully its neighbours rather than resolve conflicts according to international law.” He added: “I strongly urge China to respect norms and use diplomacy and existing mechanisms to resolve its border questions with India.” The chairman of the committee, which has oversight over the state department, is the latest US official to weigh in on India’s side in this border dispute with China. Alice Wells, the outgoing head of the state department’s South and Central Asia department, had earlier said th...

Hindustan Times June 02, 2020 Shankhyaneel Sarkar China stalled for at least two weeks more on giving WHO the details it needed, according to recordings of multiple internal meetings held by the UN health agency in January. Throughout January, the World Health Organization publicly praised China for what it called a speedy response to the new coronavirus and thanked the Chinese government for sharing the genetic map of the virus “immediately,.” But in fact, Chinese officials sat on releasing the genetic map, or genome, of the deadly virus for over a week after multiple government labs had fully decoded it, not sharing details key to designing tests, drugs and vaccines. Strict controls on information and competition within the Chinese public health system were largely to blame, The Associated Press has found from internal documents, emails and dozens of interviews. Health officials only released the genome after a Chinese lab published it ahead of authorities on a virology websit...

Hindustan Times June 02, 2020 The two officials, Abid Hussain and Muhammad Tahir, were caught by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police from central Delhi’s Karol Bagh while they were obtaining sensitive documents relating to India’s security installations from an Indian national in exchange of money, official sources had said on Sunday. The motive of the two officials of Pakistan High Commission, who were declared ‘persona non grata’ by India on charges of espionage, was to extract details of movement of Army units through trains by befriending railway staffers, police said on Monday. The two officials, Abid Hussain and Muhammad Tahir, were caught by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police from central Delhi’s Karol Bagh while they were obtaining sensitive documents relating to India’s security installations from an Indian national in exchange of money, official sources had said on Sunday. According to the police, during investigation, it has emerged that Hussain operated under...

The Telegraph June 02, 2020 By G S Mudur Rural healthcare facilities in India received 30 per cent fewer cardiac emergencies, the World Health Organisation said in a global survey released on Monday, outlining how the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted prevention and treatment services for non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The survey covering 155 countries and completed over three weeks in May has also suggested that since the coronavirus disease outbreak, people living with NCDs have become more vulnerable to becoming severely ill or dying from Covid-19, the WHO said. The most common reasons for discontinuing or reducing the NCD healthcare services were cancellations of planned treatment, a decrease in public transport services and lack of healthcare staff because they were assigned to Covid-19 services, the global health agency said. The survey has found NCD services disrupted in 120 countries. Around 49 per cent of countries have disrupted services for diabetes and diabe...

Indian Express June 02, 2020 By Krishna Mahrotra During her first interview with a  Covid-19  patient, Suganya Barani, a Master’s student at the National Institute of Epidemiology (NIE) in Chennai, abandoned her set of questions as she saw anxiety build up in his eyes. “What are you afraid of?” she asked him. The patient, a hospital sanitation worker, had just been informed of his test result, and he was about to be moved to a Covid ward. He had no symptoms, and hospital managers, civic officials, and colleagues were pressing him about his contact history. Barani is a researcher who is part of the Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR’s) attempt to capture a holistic picture of the  pandemic  with three socio-psychological studies – on healthcare workers, stigma in the public, and psychological effects of the lockdown. The qualitative and quantitative “stigma projects” were approved after incidents of attacks on healthcare workers, marginalization of r...

Express News Service June 02, 2020 The agreement will allow the two sides to use each other’s military bases for logistical support. This will be one of the key items on the agenda during the summit, and the two sides have been negotiating the pact for some time now. Ahead of the virtual summit between Prime Minister  Narendra Modi  and Australian PM Scott Morrison on June 4, Australian High Commissioner Barry O’Farrell said on Monday that the mutual logistics support agreement is on the table. The agreement will allow the two sides to use each other’s military bases for logistical support. This will be one of the key items on the agenda during the summit, and the two sides have been negotiating the pact for some time now. The Australian envoy also advocated reforms in global institutions and representation of India and Australia in multilateral groupings, a day after US President Donald Trump called for expansion of G-7 and including India and Australia in the g...

Indian Express June 02, 2020 Udit Mishra On Monday,  Moody’s Investors Service (“Moody’s”) downgraded  the Government of India’s foreign-currency and local-currency long-term issuer ratings to “Baa3” from “Baa2”. It stated that the outlook remained “negative”. The latest downgrade reduces India to the lowest investment grade of ratings and brings Moody’s — which is historically the most optimistic about India — ratings for the country in line with the other two main rating agencies in the world — Standard & Poor’s (S&P) and Fitch (see attached chart on the brief history of India’s sovereign rating). What is the reason for this downgrade? There are four main reasons why Moody’s has taken the decision. 1. Weak implementation of economic reforms since 2017 2. Relatively low economic growth over a sustained period 3. A significant deterioration in the fiscal position of governments (central and state) 4. And the rising stress in India’s financia...