West Bengal Archives - The Gulf Indians

CAA will be implemented after COVID-19 vaccination ends, says Amit Shah

The Gulf Indians — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 05:44:15 +0000

Union Home Minister of India Amit Shah on February 11 said the process of granting Indian citizenship to refugees under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will begin once the process of COVID-19 vaccination has ended.

Speaking at a rally in West Bengal, Shah said that implementation of the law had to be kept in abeyance “after the country was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020”.

“As soon as the COVID vaccination process ends the process of granting citizenship under CAA will begin. All of you [Matua community] will be respected citizens of this country,” he said, addressing a rally in Thakurnagar, the bastion of the Matua community.

There were country wide protests against the CAA after it was passed by parliament in December 2019. The law provides a fast-track to citizenship for non-Muslim refugees who have faced religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. However, there are fears that , the CAA could be used to disenfranchise Indian Muslims, using it along with the proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens.

Shah acknowledged these fears, saying, “As the home minister of this country, I want to assure the minorities of India that none of you will lose citizenship. The CAA is about granting citizenship to refugees, it is not about taking away anyone’s citizenship.”

Reacting to Shah’s assertion about implementing the CAA, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said he should “mind his language” and declared that she will never allow it to be enforced in the state.

“The home minister of the country should be careful about his utterances. We will never allow CAA, NRC or NPR [National Population Register] in Bengal. They can say whatever they want to. They want to destroy Bengal. We will never allow them to do that,” she said.

As of December 2020, the home ministry had said that rules governing the Act are still under preparation, a year after it was passed by parliament and received the President’s assent.

Responding to an RTI query from The Hindu, B.C. Joshi, director (citizenship), Foreigners Division, said “the rules under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 are under preparation”.

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90,632 COVID-19 cases recorded in India in single day

The Gulf Indians — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 10:50:21 +0000

India’s COVID-19 tally of cases went past 41 lakh with a record 90,632 people being infected in a day, while 31,80,865 people have recuperated so far pushing the national recovery rate to 77.32 per cent on September 6, according to the Union Health Ministry data.

The total coronavirus cases mounted to 41,13,811, while the death toll climbed to 70,626 with the novel coronavirus virus claiming 1,065 lives in a span of 24 hours in the country, the data updated at 8 am showed.

The COVID-19 case fatality rate due to the coronavirus infection has further declined to 1.72 per cent. There are 8,62,320 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 20.96 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and it went past 40 lakh on September 5.

According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 4,88,31,145 samples have been tested up to September 5 with 10,92,654 samples being tested on Saturday.

Of the 1,065 fresh deaths, 312 are from Maharashtra, 128 from Karnataka, 81 from Uttar Pradesh, 71 from Andhra Pradesh, 69 from Punjab, 61 from Tamil Nadu, 58 from West Bengal, 34 from Bihar, 30 from Madhya Pradesh, 25 from Delhi, 22 from Haryana, 19 from Chhattisgarh, 18 each from Puducherry and Uttarakhand, 15 each from Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand.

Fourteen fatalities have been reported from Rajasthan, 11 from Kerala, nine each from Goa and Telangana, eight from Tripura, seven each from Assam and Odisha, four from Himachal Pradesh while Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Manipur and Meghalaya have registered one fatality each.

Of the total 70,626 deaths, Maharashtra has reported the maximum at 26,276 followed by 7,748 in Tamil Nadu, 6,298 in Karnataka, 4,538 in Delhi, 4,347 in Andhra Pradesh, 3,843 in Uttar Pradesh, 3,510 in West Bengal, 3,091 in Gujarat and 1,808 in Punjab.

So far, 1,543 people have died of COVID-19 in Madhya Pradesh, 1,122 in Rajasthan, 886 in Telangana, 781 in Haryana, 770 in Jammu and Kashmir, 735 in Bihar, 538 in Odisha, 462 in Jharkhand, 356 in Chhattisgarh, 352 in Assam, 337 in Kerala and 330 in Uttarakhand.

Puducherry has registered 298 fatalities, Goa 229, Tripura 144, Chandigarh 69, Himachal Pradesh 54, Andaman and Nicobar Islands 50, Manipur 36, Ladakh 35, Meghalaya 15, Nagaland 10, Arunachal Pradesh eight, Sikkim five and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu two.

The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

“Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the ministry said on its website, adding that State-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.

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India has the lowest COVID-19 cases, deaths per million population

The Gulf Indians — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 12:26:58 +0000

Our Correspondent
India has one of the lowest cases per million (538) and deaths per million (15) compared with the global average of 1453 and 68.7, respectively. Within the country, eight states (Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat) contribute to around 90% of the active caseload and 49 districts account for 80% of active caseload, as of today. Moreover, six states (Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal) account for 86% of total deaths, and 32 districts account for 80% deaths, according to Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare Dr. Harsh Vardhan.
Special efforts were made in the regions showing higher Case Fatality Rate, he said.
As on July 9, there are total 3914 facilities in the country with 3,77,737 Isolation beds (without ICU support), 39,820 ICU beds and 1,42,415 oxygen supported beds along with 20,047 ventilators. In terms of healthcare logistics, cumulatively 213.55 lakh N95 masks, 120.94 lakh PPEs and 612.57 lakh HCQ tablets have been distributed.
During the period of Unlock 2.0, the future steps include sharp focus on containment and surveillance including demarcation of Containment Zones according to the guidelines of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare; Containment Zones to be notified on the websites; strict perimeter control & with only essential activities to be allowed; intensive contact tracing, house-to-house search/surveillance; and Buffer Zones to be identified outside the Containment Zones to contain potential new cases.
The Centre and State/UT cooperation measures taken at regular intervals include regular visit by Central Teams of public health experts to the most affected states for handholding and supporting States for more effective containment & control measures. The regular VCs chaired by Cabinet Secretary with all States/UTs focus on containment of the spread, ramping up the testing and reducing the mortality.
Dr. Harsh Vardhan stated that “as we move forward, our focus shall be on the management of COVID-19 through strict containment measures and surveillance; utilizing full testing capacity; focus on monitoring of co-morbid and elderly population; predicting emerging hotspots leveraging digital tools such as Aarogya Setu; ensuring seamless patient admission processes; focus on infrastructure preparedness (critical care beds, oxygen, ventilators and logistics).” He pointed out that “along with States/UTs, our aim is to reduce and keep the Case Fatality Rate low by early identification and effective clinical management”.
Dr. Sujeet K Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control presented a detailed report on surveillance efforts undertaken in India during the pandemic. The focus was on strict containment strategy and surveillance through SARI/ILI cases, serological survey and increase in lab network to widen countrywide testing. The major concern areas in the country were highlighted and the measures to be taken were listed including timely clinical management along with testing and surveillance in the high risk population with co-morbidities to reduce the Case Fatality Ratio.
Mr. Amit Khare, Chairman of Empowered Group-8 (on Information, Communication and Public Awareness), described the key steps taken in Communication of Information and in raising public awareness. The group received 6,755 alerts of fake news out of which 5,890 were replied to directly and rebuttals were published to 17 foreign media stories. The group also coordinated the issue of 98 daily COVID-19 bulletins, 92 media briefings and 2,482 press releases. The group played a pro-active role in behavioral change campaign during the pandemic and in creating awareness regarding the relief measures to farmer and MSME units under the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan launched by the Prime Minister. It was highlighted that the mental health issues related to COVID-19 pandemic will be a major part of the communication strategy going forward through discussions in the media. Dissemination of messages and information in regional language was focused on to reach maximum audience through interpersonal and mass communication.
Dr. S. Jaishankar, Union Foreign Minister, Mr. Hardeep S. Puri, Union Minister of Civil Aviation, Mr.. Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State, Health & Family Welfare, and Mr. Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State, Chemical and Fertilizers, & Shipping. Dr. Vinod Paul, Member (Health), Niti Aayog joined the meeting through video conference link.
Ms Preeti Sudan, Secretary (Health), Mr. Rajesh Bhushan, OSD (MoHFW), Mr. Amitabh Kant, CEO (Niti Aayog), Dr. Balram Bharagava, DG (ICMR), Mr. P D Vaghela, Secretary (Pharma), Mr. Sanjeev Ranjan, Secretary (Shipping), Mr. Ravi Capoor, Secretary (Textiles), Mr. Parameswaran Iyer, Secretary (DWS), Mr. Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary (MEITY), and representatives of ITBP, participated through virtual media.

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