Newsletter 17 March

Top 5 News

1- Latest updates on the COVID-19 crisis in India and other parts of the world
2- Top pharmaceuticals to co-develop potential coronavirus Vaccine
3- Former CJI, Ranjan Gogoi, nominated as Member of Rajya Sabha, by President of India
4- Supreme Court issues notice to Madhya Pradesh government, hearing tomorrow at 10.30 am

National

Corona Update! Total number of confirmed cases across India reaches 137: Health Ministry

A Russian delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev has cancelled their visit to India, due to coronavirus. The meeting was expected to be held in March
Central Railway today cancelled 23 trains to contain the effects of coronavirus and non-occupancy of trains.
Uttarakhand govt declares Covid-19 as epidemic
Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA): Union Home Secretary, Ajay Bhalla today reviewed the level of preparedness to contain Coronavirus threat, with states bordering Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Union Home Secretary urged all the concerned officials to ensure that round the clock deployment of doctors, with requisite testing kits and other medical
- supplies, be done so that hundred percent screening is done without fail.
- Director-general of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to media, ICMR is also engaging with high-quality private laboratories that include NABL accredited laboratories, to understand the modalities to increase access to the tests while ensuring appropriate safeguards.
- Facebook, Twitter, Google say ‘jointly combating’ COVID-19 misinformation
- Iran reports 135 new deaths due to #coronavirus, raising total to 988: AFP news agency
- Currently the laboratory expansion of ICMR is engaged, we are expanding our number of laboratories and as we speak, today we have 72 functional laboratories in ICMR system. 72 ICMR labs and 49 others in government sector to be functional by the end of the week, also engaging with NABL accredited labs.
- China’s economy could shrink by 9% in first quarter: Goldman Sachs
- Sri Lanka bans all incoming flights for two weeks
- Anti-CAA protests called off across Tamil Nadu amid Covid-19 scare.
Those refusing to follow coronavirus prevention, treatment orders will be penalized: J&K admin
Shiv Sena Ministers to meet FM N Sitharaman seeking compensation for poultry business that was hit hard by the current crisis.
Coronavirus cases in Pakistan surges to 189,
Confirmed coronavirus cases in South Asia near 400
Nearly 14,000 new COVID-19 cases reported globally in 24 hours; tally exceeds 167,500: WHO
India bans entry of passengers from Afghanistan, Philippines, and Malaysia with immediate effect.
Henk Bekedam, WHO Representative to India on meeting with ICMR: We have very good research capacity in India and especially at ICMR & Dept of health research. They have been able to isolate the virus, now India will continue to be part of the research community.
- The commitment from Indian govt, the PMs Office has been enormous, very impressive. It is one of the reasons why India is still doing quite well. I am very impressed that everyone has been mobilized.
Maharashtra: A 64-year-old COVID-19 patient passes away at Mumbai’s Kasturba hospital.
A 63-year-old doctor who treated the 76-yr-old man, who died due to Coronavirus, has tested positive. He along with his family has been kept in quarantine at his home. He will be sent to isolation ward today in Karnataka.
Indian Council of Medical Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has laid guidelines for testing strategy in India. It also states that there is currently no community transmission of COVID-19.

Top pharmaceuticals to co-develop potential coronavirus Vaccine

US drug-maker Pfizer has signed a deal with Germany’s BioNTech to co-develop a potential vaccine for the coronavirus using BioNTech’s mRNA-based drug development platform, the companies said on Tuesday.
The drugmakers will start the collaboration immediately and have signed a letter of intent for the vaccine’s distribution outside China, they said in a joint statement.
The companies said they will finalize financial terms, and details regarding development, manufacturing and potential commercialization of the vaccine over the next few weeks.
Reuters reported on Sunday that the German government was trying to stop the U.S.
administration from persuading CureVac, another German drugmaker working on an experimental vaccine for the coronavirus, to move its research to the United States.
- Pfizer and BioNTech will use research and development sites from both companies, including in the United States and Germany, the companies said.
- BioNTech on Monday struck a collaboration deal with Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical over its rights in China to its experimental coronavirus vaccine, aiming to start testing on humans from late April.
- The race is on to develop an immunization, which is seen as by far the most effective tool to halt the global spread of the pathogen.
- Rival Moderna which is working with the U.S. National Institutes of Health, on Monday announced that it dosed the first patient with its experimental coronavirus vaccine in an early-stage trial.
- Pfizer already collaborates with BioNTech to develop mRNA-based vaccines for influenza.
- The coronavirus outbreak has so far infected nearly 179,000 people globally and killed more than 7,000. Several countries have imposed bans on mass gatherings such as sporting, cultural and religious events to combat the disease.

Former CJI, Ranjan Gogoi, nominated as Member of Rajya Sabha, by President of India

Former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi was nominated for Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament, on Mon by President Ram Nath Kovind.

The President’s move is unprecedented – no Chief Justice has been nominated to the Upper House, usually dominated by celebrities and artistes, by the head of the state.

“In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-clause (a) of clause (1) of article 80 of the Constitution of India, read with clause (3) of that article, the President is pleased to nominate Shri Ranjan Gogoi to the Council of States to fill the vacancy caused due to the retirement of one of the nominated members,” the notification said.

And few members of the judiciary have crossed over to the space of legislature.

A couple of decades ago, former Chief Justice Ranganath Mishra had joined the Congress and became a Member of Parliament. Justice Mishra, who retired in 1991, was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1998 to 2004.

He was among the 4 sitting top court judges who had held a first-of-its-kind press conference in Jan 2018 when Dipak Misra was the CJI.

They had alleged selective “assignment of cases to preferred judges” and “sensitive cases were being allotted to junior judges” by Justice Misra.

This developed a chaos by the opposition by citing that such act will question the impartiality of judiciary.

Gogoi, was the first person from the northeast India to reach the top judicial position and credited for bringing the curtains down on the decades old politically and religiously sensitive Ayodhya land dispute.

Meanwhile the first reaction came from Gogoi and said “I’ll go to Delhi probably tomorrow. Let me first take the oath then I will speak in detail to the media that why I accepted this and why I am going to Rajya Sabha.”

However, being served in judiciary, cant debarred anyone that one can’t be nominated by President in RS, as per norms.

Supreme Court issues notice to Madhya Pradesh government, hearing tomorrow at 10.30 am

SC has issued notice to MP govt and others on petition filed by former CM SS Chouhan to hold immediate floor test in MP Assembly. Chouhan says, “The current government in MP will certainly fall. Today, the Bharatiya Janata Party has the required numbers to form government.”

Congress party urges SC to declare as illegal the ‘confinement’ of its MLAs by Centre, Karnataka Govt and MP BJP

The annual Budget of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir Union will be presented in the Lok Sabha today; Budget copies brought to the Parliament

News From Lok Sabha

MoS G Kishan Reddy in Lok Sabha in a written reply to a question on total number of terrorist incidents in country after revocation of Article 370 in Kashmir: No major terror attack took place in the hinterland of the country during the period from Aug 5, 2019 to Mar 10, 2020.

However, 79 terrorist incidents have taken place in JnK during the period from Aug 5, 2019 to Mar 10, 2020 in which 49 terrorists have been neutralized.

In reply to a question on the total number of detention centers in Assam: A detention center at Matia, Goalpara with a capacity of 3000 is under construction. There is no NRC detention camp/center in Assam.

In reply to a question on the total number of detention centers in Assam: 10 inmates of 6 detention centers in Assam, where declared foreigners/convicted foreigners are kept, died in different hospital from 1st Mar, 2019 to 29^th Feb, 2020.

In reply to a question on the total number of detention centers in Assam: From 1st Mar, 2019 to 29^th Feb, 2020, 3 teams of National Human Right Commission (NHRC) have visited Detention Centers in Assam and have interacted with declared foreign nationals.

In a written reply in Lok Sabha to a question ‘whether Government has granted licenses under the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) to NGOs during the last 3 years: 1011 in 2017, 520 in 2018 and 683 in 2019 licenses were granted in last 3 years.Congress MP Jairam Ramesh has given Zero Hour Notice in Rajya Sabha over ‘need for informed debate and discussion on Law Commission’s Report on Uniform Civil Code’.

Assam: In a search operation in Badagaon earlier today, by Udalguri Police and Army, 1 AK-56 rifle, 12 live rounds ammunition, one rocket launcher, detonators with wires were recovered among other seizures were recovered.

Political

Madhya Pradesh Governor Lalji Tandon, rewrites to CM Kamal Nath, stating ‘Conduct the floor test on 17^th March otherwise it will be considered that you actually don’t have the majority in the state assembly.’

In reply, CM Kamal Nath writes to Governor Lalji Tandon. The letter reads ‘Let the 16 MLAs, who have been held captive, be released. Let them live in their respective houses for 5-7 days without any fear so that they can take an independent decision. ‘Your belief that I should conduct Floor Test in MP Assembly on 17^th Mar, otherwise it will be considered that I don’t have the majority will be unconstitutional because of it being baseless.’

Assembly’s principal secretary on being asked if he has received a Confidence or No-Confidence Motion: We have not received any official information yet. It has come to our knowledge that some document has been given to the Speaker by the Leader of the Opposition.

The adjournment came soon after Governor Lalji Tandon walked out of the state assembly amid Congress slogans of “respect the house” after he said in his opening address at session today to “follow the Constitution”.

Massive tsunami is coming, India should prepare for economic devastation: Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Gandhi on Tue slammed Centre over the current situation of the economy saying that a massive “tsunami” is coming and the government is not clear about what they have to do.

“I have been warning the government that a massive tsunami is coming and they are not clear about what they have to do. India should be preparing itself not just for Covid-19 but for the economic devastation that is coming. I am saying it again and again, nobody is listening to me. Our people are going to go through unimaginable pain in the next six months,” said Gandhi.

His statement came a day after RBI Governor, SK Das in media admitted himself that a slowdown will come amid COVID-19.

International

Pak President reached Beijing-Radio Pak

President Dr. Arif Alvi reached Beijing today to convey strong support and solidarity of Pakistan to the Government and the people of China in its efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19.

At the airport, he was received by Chinese Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Han Changfu and Ambassador of Pakistan to China Naghmana Alamgir Hashmi.

The President was presented static guard by a smartly turned out contingent.

During the visit, the President will hold meetings with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and leadership of the host country.

Talking to media persons prior to departure, Dr. Arif Alvi said he will also express condolence with the Chinese leadership over the loss of precious human lives due to this virus.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms, Asad Umar are accompanying the President.

A number of MoUs are expected to be signed during the visit.

A conspiracy theory linking the US army to the coronavirus now has official Chinese endorsement

Something that had been merely suggested before has now been blown wide into the open in China.

A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, Zhao Lijian, tweeted yesterday that “it might be the US army” that brought the coronavirus to China, giving an official boost to a conspiracy theory that had been allowed to circulate on Chinese social media for weeks.

The conspiracy posits that 300 athletes from the US military who in October attended the 7th Military World Games in Wuhan, where the epidemic first broke out, were infected with the virus, thereby spreading it in China.

States

Chhattisgarh: 13 bombs, including 6 pressure cooker IEDs, 3 arrow bombs, 1 pipe bomb, 1 desi mortar bomb, 2 petrol bombs, were detected and destroyed by a team of Bomb Detection & Disposal Squad (BDDS) 195 battalion and Jagdalpur Police today.