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 Hindustan Times  September 24, 2020 By: HT Corrospondence The Prime Minister and the CMs discussed several issues and shared notes about their economic recovery. The leaders of Karnataka and Punjab flagged potential shortages of oxygen cylinders. States can dip further into their disaster relief funds, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a meeting with the chief ministers of the seven states hit hardest by the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic, while also urging them to consider whether intermittent lockdowns help or are coming in the way of restarting economic activity. The Prime Minister held a video conference with the CMs of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Punjab – regions that the Union health ministry said together account for at least 63% of active cases and 77% of fatalities due to the viral disease. For Covid-19, all states can use up to 50% of their state disease relief fund (SDRF), up from a cap of 35% set in Apri...

 Hindustan times September 23, 2020 By: Imtiaz Ahmad PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz Sharif criticises a meeting of her uncle and other party leaders of the alliance with Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and Inter-Services Intelligence director general Lt Gen Faiz Hameed to discuss the prospects of giving GB the status of a province. Cracks have emerged in Pakistan’s newly formed opposition alliance over Gilgit Baltistan, with PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz Sharif saying the issue of giving provincial status to the disputed region should have been discussed in parliament and not at the GHQ, the military headquarters. “They (leaders of the Pakistan Democratic Movement) were called (to the GHQ) on the issue of Gilgit Baltistan. This is a political issue that should be settled by the people's representatives.... These issues should be decided in the parliament, not in the GHQ,” she told media on Wednesday. Her comments came a day after Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and Inter-Services Intellig...

 Hindustan Times September 23, 2020 By: Shishir Gupta The change of Gilgit-Baltistan’s status fits in well with Pakistan NSA Moeed Yusuf’s long-standing project to turn the Line of Control with India into an International Border. Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa has fronted Pakistan’s exercise to  create a province in disputed Gilgit-Baltistan  (GB) in the occupied Northern Areas, holding a quiet meeting with the country’s politicians on the topic before a minister went public with Islamabad’s plans last week. But the army, people familiar with the matter said, isn’t driving the creation of the fifth province alone. A 39-year-old has also been hard at work. Moeed W Yusuf. Yusuf, Special Assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan on National Security Division and Strategic Planning, has been a principal player in Islamabad’s decision to revoke the notional autonomy granted to Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and incorporate the disputed region as one of Pakistan’s five provinces, Pak...

Hindustan Times September 23, 2020 Rezaul H Laskar India has accused Pakistan of supporting cross-border terrorism, especially in Kashmir. It has also repeatedly spurned all efforts by Trump to mediate between the two countries, saying differences with Pakistan are a bilateral matter. The Trump administration’s nominee for ambassador to Pakistan has said that Islamabad must take “sustained and irreversible” action against terrorism. In a statement to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Tuesday as part of his confirmation process, William E Todd said he will actively engage Pakistan on terrorism, strategic stability and non-proliferation if he is confirmed. “To truly reduce regional tensions, and rebuild a strong relationship with the United States, Pakistan must take sustained and irreversible action against terrorism. Pakistan has suffered terribly itself at the hands of terrorists and has committed publicly to ensure terrorists cannot use Pakistani territory to operate,” ...

 Hindustan Times September 24, 2020 The yield on India’s benchmark 10-year bonds fell by two basis points to 5.99% Indian stocks fell for a fifth straight day, with the country’s benchmark suffering its longest string of losses in six months. The S&P BSE Sensex dropped 0.2% to 37,668.42 in Mumbai, erasing an earlier gain of as much as 1%. The NSE Nifty 50 Index also lost 0.2%. A measure of telecommunication shares sank 7.4%, its biggest fall since March. “We see the offering having potential to drive at least some churn from incumbents,” said Bhupendra Tiwary, an analyst at Mumbai-based ICICI Securities Ltd. Both the Sensex and Nifty are headed for their longest string of losses since March 2. Until this week’s declines, the measures had climbed by about 50% from coronavirus-triggered losses later that month. Cases of the infection have since surged to the second-highest in the world, and continue to climb. “We have a large negative trigger at the back of our minds in terms of ...

 The Hindustan Times September 23, 2020 By: Amrutha Kosuru The shipments give some respite to the nation’s hobbled oil industry, as most shipowners avoid doing business with the country for fear of sanctions. The Iran-flagged supertanker Honey, also known as Horse, is loading Venezuela’s top exported grade Merey 16 at Venezuela’s government-controlled port of Jose, according to a shipping report seen by Bloomberg. The shipments give some respite to the nation’s hobbled oil industry, as most shipowners avoid doing business with the country for fear of sanctions. The vessel, which just discharged 2 million barrels of Iranian condensate , turned off its satellite signal to avoid detection after the  US  was able to intercept 1.116 million barrels of gasoline going to  Venezuela  in August. Bloomberg reported that the ship was discharging its contents in Venezuela last week though ship-tracking signals still show the ship off the coast of Dubai. Venezuela, owner of ...

 The Wire September 23, 2020 By: Karan Thapar In a powerful and passionate interview with frequent flashes of anger and displays of emotion, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah has said that at this moment the Kashmiri people do not feel and do not want to be Indian. He even went so far as to say that they would rather be ruled by the Chinese, a point he reiterated when he was asked if he really meant this. Abdullah, who heads the National Conference party and had been the most prominent ‘pro-India’ face in Jammu and Kashmir for the past four decades, also described the Kashmiris as slaves who were being treated like second class citizens. In a 44-minute interview to   The Wire , Abdullah said it was complete rubbish for the Bharatiya Janata Party to claim that the people of Kashmir have accepted the August 2019 changes just because there have been no protests. He said if the soldiers on every street and Section 144 were to be lifted, people will come ...

 Hindustan Times September 24, 2020 By: Harshit Sabarwal The study which was exclusively shared with Reuters found a link between the spread of Covid-19 and past outbreaks of mosquito-borne viral disease dengue, which further suggested that exposure to dengue might be able to provide immunity against the virus to some extent. Amid the ongoing surge in the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths, several organizations and institutions across the globe are conducting research to develop a vaccine or to find out a disease that might combat Covid-19. Since the last eight months, over 47,000 scientific papers have appeared in medical journals that talk about ways of dealing with the disease. The information obtained from these papers has helped in forecasting the outcome of Covid-19 and developing effective measures to control it. According to news agency  Reuters , a study was conducted that analysed the Covid-19 crisis in Brazil- which is the third worst-hit nation after the United S...

 Huffpost September 24, 2020 By:Samarth Bansal & Aman Sethi Trivitron Healthcare told HuffPost India that they began designing the ventilator and procuring the components only after they were given the contract. In early April, Trivitron Healthcare, a 23-year old Chennai-based medical technology company, got government orders to build 7,000 “basic” and 3,000 “advanced” ventilators, paid for from the PM CARES fund. But when Trivitron got the order, neither of their basic nor advanced ventilator models existed—not even working prototypes. The total value of Trivitron’s order works out to Rs 373 crore, based on a simple cost-per-unit calculation including Goods and Services Tax. The “advanced” model was priced at Rs 8,56,800, five times the “basic” model which was priced at Rs 1,66,376, information accessed through RTI requests filed by transparency activist Venkatesh Nayak have revealed.  These prices for Trivitron models – which were yet to be developed at the time — were b...

 The Wire September 24, 2020 By: Himanshu Upadhaya The global pandemic has impacted democratic life and institutions, with assembly sessions getting shortened or delayed in many states in India. In the first nine months of the year, we have witnessed 47 audit reports meant to be presented to state legislatures from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India entering the public domain so far. As the later stages of the nationwide unlock process started, discussions around preparing the state assemblies for monsoon sessions had started gathering steam. Since mid-August, when assemblies were re-convened, we witnessed presentation of 24 audit reports in different state legislatures. Most audit reports presented in this calendar year (i.e. 2020) in state legislatures are the reports for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018, with only a few of them pertaining to the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019. The CAG audit reports for at least nine states pertaining to the financial year 2...