#Uttarakhand power shortage | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

alrating7 · 5 years ago

Text

10 Largest Hydro Power Plant in India

Hydro Power Plant in India:- India has a total of 4710 dams which makes it the third country with more dams in the world. With a growing population, water sources and electricity get depreciated. It is necessary to take measures to create water bodies and save water that is already available. While saving water, hydroelectric power plants also generate electricity. Places which are far away from water bodies depend on such dams and reservoirs for their irrigation and everyday water needs. Dams are a great asset to the country as it helps develop agriculture, holds flood water, prevent electricity shortage and tend to drought-ridden areas. Here is a list of the top 10 hydroelectric plants, stations/dams in India. Hydro Power Plant in India 1. Srisailam Dam Srisailam Dam is the third largest dam in India, built over the famous River Krishna. Located in Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh, it is very famous for its hydroelectric power plant and is also a popular tourist spot. The dam was constructed in the year 1980, and with additional turbines added later, the total cost came up to 10 billion rupees. The six 150MW turbine on the left side of the bank and seven 110MW Francis type turbines on the right side of the river bank generate a huge electricity output. The dam is prone to flooding during which times electricity cannot be generated as the water flow is downwards and visitors are not allowed. It is one of the top hydropower plants in India. Height: 476 feetLength: 1680 feetAbove sea level: 300mNo. of gates: 12Total area: 616 sq.kmReservoir capacity: 800sq.kmPower generation capacity: 6x150MW and 7x110MW 2. Nagarjuna Sagar Dam Nagarjuna Sagar dam’s construction began in the year 1955 and took 12 years (1967) for completion. It is built across River Krishna in Nalgonda district, Telangana and Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh in India. The dam is designed to provide irrigation water to the nearby districts as well as for the generation of hydroelectric power. The dam’s reservoir is the second largest in the country. During flooding, excess water is sent to the canal which is then released to nearby streams. Height: 490 feetLength: 1.6kmNo. of floodgates: 26Reservoir capacity: 405 TMCPower generation capacity: 1x110MW and 7x100.80MW 3. Idukki Dam Idukki dam was opened in the year 1973, and its construction began in the year 1969 in India. It is constructed across the Periyar River between Kuravan and Kurathi hills in Kerala. The dam is built in the shape of an arch and is the highest in the country. The floodgates have been opened twice till now, and the canal takes the excess water for irrigation use. It is also a popular tourist spot with relaxed rules, and the tourists can enjoy the time there and even go boating. Height: 554 feetLength: 1,200 feetTotal surface area: 60 sq.kmReservoir capacity: 2,000 cubic metrePower generation capacity: 6x130MW 4. Sardar Sarovar dam Sardar Sarovar dam is constructed across River Narmada in Navagam, Gujarat in India. It is the largest dam in the country. Its size is capable of covering 210 villages during floods. It was involved in a lot of controversies, and finally, in 2014, the Supreme Court issued an order to raise the height from 260 feet to 535 feet. The dam is the main source of water to dry areas like Kutch and Saurashtra. Height: 535 feetLength: 3,970 feetReservoir capacity: 9,500,000,000 cubic metrePower generation capacity: 1,450 installed capacity and 6x200MW 5. Mettur dam Mettur dam was constructed across River Kaveri in the year 1934. It is located in Salem and is one of the largest dams in India. The dam has a reservoir called the Stanley reservoir and is famous for its irrigation and hydroelectric power generation. The dam provides irrigation water to villages in Salem, Erode, Karur, Namakkal, and Tiruchirapalli. With the Kabini Dam built across River Kaveri in Karnataka, Mettur dam receives very less water. Sometimes the dam even dries up during summer. The dispute between the two states with regards to the Kaveri River is still ongoing. Height: 120 feetLength: 1,700 mReservoir capacity: 2.64 cubic km 6. Tehri dam Tehri dam was constructed in the year 2006 taking 28 years to complete from when it started in 1978. It is located in Tehri, Uttarakhand, India and the dam is used for irrigation purposes and for local water supply. Height: 855 feetLength: 1,886 feetWidth: 66 feetReservoir capacity: 3,200,000 acre ftPower generation capacity: 2,400 MW 7. Indravati Dam Located in Odisha, this project has four dams built across the Indravati River and its tributaries forming a single reservoir. It took 1107 crore rupees however it has generated much more clean energy to meet the cost of building the dams and reservoir. Reservoir capacity: 1435.5 McumPower generation: 2602.30 MU in 2013-14.Power generation capacity: 600 MW 8. Salal Hydroelectric Power Station This hydropower plant is constructed over Chenab River in Jammu & Kashmir, India. Constructed began in the year 1970, and the first stage was commissioned in the year 1987. The first stage of the second unit began commission in 1993. The project cost 9288.9 million rupees. The tariff rate is Rs. 41.56. It is one of the top hydroelectric power plants in India Height: 113 mLength: 450 mNo. of gates: 12Power generation capacity: 690 MW 9. Hirakud Dam Hirakud dam is located in Sambalpur, Odisha and is built across River Mahanadi in India. Construction of the dam began in the year 1948, and it was completed in 1957. The upper basin faced droughts, whereas the lower delta region faced problems of flooding. And to eradicate this problem, the dam was built. It is designed to flow into a reservoir which is used for irrigation and water supply to the locals. Height: 200 feetLength: 16 milesReservoir capacity: 4,779,965 acre-ftPower generation capacity: 2x49.5 MW, 3x37.5 MW and 2x32MW 10. Koyna Hydroelectric Dam Koyna dam is built over River Koyna in Maharastra. Its construction was completed in the year 1964. The reservoir became Lake Shivajinagar. The dam was built for the purpose of generating hydroelectric power and for irrigation purposes. Height: 339 feetLength: 2,468 feetNo. of gates: 6Reservoir capacity: 2,267,900 acre-ftPower generation capacity: 1,960 MW Lastly These are the top hydroelectric power plants in India. If any of the hydroelectric power plants have been missed will be updated with your comments. So do comment and lets us know what has been skipped. Read the full article

1 note · View note

sandeepachetan · 6 years ago

Photo

Greens are awesome right now, where we are. In Garhwal. We've been to Garhwal twice now. First, in the monsoon and now. Seeing the spring transitioning into summer. Days get hotter, the sun stronger. The power of a river - we see what it means strongly in Garhwal. The last time, we were visiting The Goat Village, in Raithal. Near Uttarkashi. Where the river Bhagirathi flows down from Gangotri. Water was not a problem. Farming was possible. This time, we were in Pauri Garhwal. Away from the big rivers. Acute water shortage. Everyone buys water. No agriculture. Dry farmlands. But in both cases, the problem of migration and ghost villages is evident. Which is where companies like the Green People (who run TGV) come into play. If you're curious about what this all is, we wrote about it here http://bit.ly/305oQTp Now that we are spending time here in Uttarakhand, we want to connect with more rural and sustainable tourism initiatives. Do you know of any? Do you run any? We would love to know. Have you visited any tourism initiative focussed on reverse migration? How was your experience? Tell us! — view on Instagram http://bit.ly/2VdBY5c

#Instagram #IFTTT

6 notes · View notes

traptirawat45 · 3 years ago

Text

Things To Look After While Going On a Chardham Yatra With Aarav Tours and Travel

Chardham yatra uttarakhand is considered the ultimate salvation on earth and is one of the dreams of every Hindu devotee in Uttarakhand. We usually keep hearing the phrase, “I want to travel to Chardham”, or “once this work will take over, I will go to Chardham”. Basically, this whole journey of witnessing the four holiest places in Hinduism in Uttarakhand is extremely celebrated and we are embedded to either be on a Chardham yatra or to take our elders on it. Nowadays, you can easily book Chardham yatra Uttarakhand packages without any hassle. However, there are a few things that need your consideration and we will throw light on them as the article proceeds.

Travelling tips for Chardham Yatra Uttarakhand

Look for the best season

The first thing to remember is when this auspicious Yatra should be performed. It is ideal to visit during the best season so that you may visit the shrines when the doors are open. Every year, the Yatra begins in April-May and concludes in October-November, although the busiest season is in September since the area experiences significant rains from June to August, which can cause a slew of problems.

Similarly, the month of May is densely populated and will cause several inconveniences and issues, particularly for those who are unwell. September is the ideal month for everyone since the lands are lush with lovely vistas and scenic beauty after the rains. With beautiful scenery and breathtaking vistas, the entire valley appears to be fresh, new, and elegant.

Prepare yourself

It is advised to begin preparations at least a month before the Char Dham Yatra: just a brisk walk of 4 to 5 kilometres each day would be good. At high elevations, breathing techniques like Pranayama can assist battle a shortage of oxygen. Basically, booking rail tickets, flights, and vacation packages are insufficient. It is necessary to prepare your mind and get it ready for the Char Dham Yatra. Super deluxe hotels are fantastic hotels, but they are on the pricey side, and there aren't many of them on the Yatra route.

Consider your age and physical capacities

If you are in good health, Aarav Tours & Travel can help you arrange your Chardham yatra. However, because of the changeable weather and hikes, taking babies, children under the age of three, and pregnant women is not recommended. Children are particularly susceptible to the effects of rapidly changing weather, which might result in chest tightness, a cold, or coughing.

Carry comfortable and warm clothes

Carry thick, heavy woollen clothing with you because the season is usually chilly there, and at high altitudes, lighter clothing is hard to survive in. It's also a good idea to have a reliable cell-powered light with additional batteries on hand in case you need assistance, particularly at night.

While taking all the above mentioned into consideration, one can book Chardham yatra Uttarakhand packages with Aarav Tour and Travel. Moreover, we are more than a tour company and prefer a long bond with our clients hence do not worry about anything. Contact now for the free consultation and customized itinerary.

0 notes

environmentindia · 3 years ago

Text

TODAY'S TRENDING ENVIRONMENT NEWS INDIA

SALINITY, RECHARGE ISSUES AND EXTRACTION HAVE SPELT DOOM IN GOTHRA AND KHANPUR KHURD: HARYANA

Gothra village is located in Charkhi Dadri, Haryana’s newest district on the state’s border with Rajasthan. It looks like any other dusty village in north India. Except that it is suffering extreme water shortages which, if not controlled, will soon make the village a desert.

The village has fallen prey to excessive salinity in its groundwater, caused by lack of recharge due to decreasing rainfall and consequent extreme groundwater extraction. All this has led to the village being caught in a vicious cycle which is now so bad that it neither has potable drinking water nor water for its crops .Gothra is in the ‘over-exploited’ category as far as groundwater is concerned, according to the Central Ground Water Authority. This means that more groundwater is being drained out than necessary.

The groundwater in Gothra continues to fall, according to the Haryana Water Resources (conservation, regulation, management) Authority. Sweet water was found at a depth of 82 feet (25 metres) in 2010. But today, water is available in this village at 118 feet. The situation is so bad that farmers in the village have a choice: Grow crops with saline water or not grow them at all.

👉 DTE

LEOPARD SKIN SEIZED IN ODISHA, SEVEN HELD

The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau along with the Odisha forest department has recovered a leopard skin in Mayurbhanj district and arrested seven people in this connection, an official said on Thursday.

Acting on a tip-off, a joint team launched an operation on Wednesday and apprehended two of the seven, who are allegedly being involved in the wildlife trade, from near the old bus stand area in Jashipur of the district, Karanjia Forest Division Range Officer Pradeep Prusty said.

Information about the killing of a leopard by criminals and attempts to sell its skin was first received by the WCCB unit in Madhya Pradesh. It is suspected that the animal was of 10 years of age and shot dead in the Similipal National Park around 15-20 days back, Prusty said.

👉 The Print

OVER 30% INDIAN DISTRICTS VULNERABLE TO EXTREME FOREST FIRES: STUDY

More than 30% of Indian districts are vulnerable to extreme forest fires, said a study released on Thursday, warning such wildfires have risen by over 10 times in the last two decades.

The study conducted by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), highlighted that in the last month alone, significant forest fires were reported in states like Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The CEEW study also found that Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Maharashtra are the most prone to high-intensity forest fire events caused by rapid change in the climate.

The study also found that over the last two decades, more than 89 per cent of total forest fire incidents have been recorded in districts that are traditionally drought-prone or have been witnessing weather swapping trends i.e., flood-prone areas turning drought-prone and vice-versa.

👉 Republicworld

SOWMYA REDDY TO INAUGURATE ZERO FEST IN BENGALURU ORGANISED BY VEGAN FEST AND POWERED BY PLANT BASED FOOD INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION

Lets Vez and Vegan Fest are organising India’s first Zero Fest, a two-day lifestyle festival celebrating sustainability and veganism to be held on the 9th and 10th of April 2022 in Bengaluru.

Sowmya Reddy, Member of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly and General Secretary of All India Mahila Congress of Karnataka will be inaugurating Zero Fest. Popular actresses Preetika Rao and Ashvithi Shetty to attend the event. Zero Fest is being organised in association with Blue Tribe; Khadi Deepak Welfare Foundation; Urban Platter; Only Earth, Geist Beer, Tags Chips, Guilio Garden and Crave by Leena. Plant Based Food Industry Association has lent wholehearted support to the festival. The NGO partners for the event are: People for Animal, FIAPO, Vegan Outreach, Plant Based Treaty (Animal Save Movement); Rare Earth; El Zero; Digital Madhyam; BIO Nutrients and PETA.

Zero Fest is going to be held at Jayamahal Hotel, Bengaluru from 12 noon onwards and the organisers are expecting a footfall of around 15000 people. A weekend full of shopping, live food counters, fashion shows, workshops, live music, poetry, dance, games and quizzes, prizes, virtual treasure hunts, causes, tree plantation drives and more. Bengaluru city will transform into an immersive experience of zero waste, zero cruelty and zero impact choices.

👉 Webindia123

Comment and tell us your thoughts

Join our Group 👉 Environment India to share your eco-awareness message

Now you can also join our WhatsApp group 👉Environment India

🌱🌏🌱

Environment India is a PAN INDIA Volunteer initiative for ecological awareness and incorporate conservative environmentalism in the society. Your support will encourage us to provide you this free service. To support us you just have to follow us and share posts more to create awareness. You can also share your thoughts and articles to publish on topics related to Environment and Wildlife.

0 notes

johnvazhathara · 4 years ago

Text

Save

Font Size

D’load Image

Download PDF

Image

Text

Listen

Social murder and the missing stateThe defence that the government is not responsible for the present crisis has consequences for India’s democracy

07/05/2021

PTI-PTI

When people are placed under conditions which appeal to the brute only, said Friedrich Engels, what remains to them but to rebel or to succumb to utter brutality?

The scenes that are being witnessed in India now are apocalyptic in tone. When a citizen attacks hospital personnel because a life was lost due to the absence of medical care, or a citizen struggles to breathe with an oxygen cylinder on the pavement, it is a crisis at multiple levels.

Appalling discourse

But what is concerning, more than the “collapse of the system” or the failure of the state, is the shocking discourse among the supporters of the government that it is not responsible for the present crisis, arguably, India’s gravest hour.

This defence has consequences for India’s democracy.

Engels had argued that the English ruling class and the state had created such horrendous working and living conditions for the workers, without the “necessaries of life”, that they suffer not only ill health but meet early deaths. Engels calls this social murder, the same as murder by an individual; the only difference is that this murder is “disguised”, for “no man sees the murderer” and the death appears to be a “natural one”.

What we are seeing around, in our inability to make the state accountable, is social murder. The only difference between Engels’ England in the 1840s, when it was the working class which was devastated by pandemics, and India now, is that the pandemic in this wave is not just preying on the most vulnerable populations. Therefore, it is also not invisible any longer.

The state’s actions

But in the first wave of the pandemic in India, the tragic plight of millions of inter-State migrant labour walking thousands of kilometres, remained invisible. That was a classic case of social murder. And it was justified then as well in narratives which argued that, after all, it was the responsibility of the workers themselves for “voluntarily” undertaking such a journey. Just as it is the responsibility of the people themselves for causing the second wave. Yet, ironically, when the successful defeat of COVID-19 was celebrated in February by an official resolution of the Bharatiya Janata Party, it was the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that was given credit, not the people.

When ordinary people, without access to expert advice, are asked to own up to their mistakes, powerful actors such as the Election Commission of India holding an eight-phase election in Bengal, the Uttarakhand Chief Minister justifying the Kumbh mela and the Prime Minister exulting about the size of an election rally crowd in West Bengal on a day when over 2,00,000 Indians were newly infected by the novel coronavirus, are all unassailable actions of the state.

By participating in the state’s abdication of responsibility, one is fostering conditions of social murder. The argument that cremations cannot be shown by the media because they are “sacred” to Hindus is a part of this act. Other than the obvious fallacy that Hindu cremations are not televised or recorded, here, the more critical questions such as how many deaths could have been prevented by a simple provision of oxygen, why people are forced to cremate their loved ones in parking lots or pavements, and if that is any less dignified than telling the story to the world remain unanswered.

As epidemiologists assert, obfuscating the real gravity of a pandemic is the dangerous path to a bigger disaster. If the Chinese state had not hidden the pandemic in its initial stages, the world probably would have not been at this juncture. That is why there has been such a sustained focus by the world media on hotspots where death tolls mounted: Italy, Iran, the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Peru, etc,. But the tragedy in India is sought to be portrayed as a cultural exceptionalism that cannot be televised.

A different patrimonialism

In the last seven years, the Indian state has acquired distinct tendencies of what sociologist Max Weber has called patrimonialism in which the ruler exercises a traditional form of authority which rests on the “sanctity of immemorial traditions”, in contrast to a rule based on a rational-legal bureaucracy or impersonal rules. But unlike in ideal typical patrimonialism, this highly personalised and centralised form of rule is not based on heredity, kinship ties or personal allegiances, rather on the ideology of religious majoritarianism as well as nationalism, and legitimised by election wins. Duty, patriotism, etc., become keywords here as was tellingly witnessed during the misery unleashed by demonetisation.

Ironically, this patrimonial government, which prided itself as a ‘mai-baap sarkar’, the dispenser of benevolence towards subjects, overnight transforms itself into one which asks citizens to fend for themselves, whether it is by procuring oxygen cylinders or arranging ambulances. This has resulted in a Social Darwinism in which only the most powerful have some chance of survival.

From the assertions of the Union Health Minister that there never was any shortage of oxygen, the Uttar Pradesh government charging people with First Information Reports (FIRs) for requesting oxygen, to the Haryana Chief Minister’s comment that the dead cannot return and, therefore, it was pointless to discuss many unaccounted deaths, all depict a state that has shed its professed benevolence during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

As scholars identify, one of the fundamental problems in patrimonialism is ensuring accountability, something that becomes stark during a pandemic when the patrimonial state goes missing. On the one hand, we have the belated act of sanctioning oxygen plants by the Prime Minister, which, keeping in line with governance as benevolence, is met with cabinet Ministers expressing their gratitude in unison. On the other, the Prime Minister has not addressed a single press conference on COVID-19, quite a stunning fact globally for the head of a democracy.

Become citizens, not subjects

While the Swedish Prime Minister was recently subject to questioning by a constitutional committee on COVID-19 handling, the present Indian state has no means of ensuring a critical scrutiny of the chronology of government decisions that led to the current crisis. For the moment, we will have to be content with scathing observations like those of the Allahabad High Court that deaths due to lack of oxygen are no “less than a genocide”.

Engels had argued that the English ruling class’ “class prejudice and preconceived opinions” had enveloped it in a “mad blindness” about the social murder that was happening in its midst, which, in any case, did not affect it. India, under the pandemic, is seeing a different kind of prejudice, preconceived opinions and mad blindness in sanctioning social murder. Unless people become citizens and not subjects under a patrimonial rule, the calamitous clouds of the pandemic portend a bleak future for Indian democracy as well.

Nissim Mannathukkaren is with Dalhousie University, Canada and tweets @nmannathukkaren

0 notes

ezhilmozhi · 4 years ago

Text

Support The Caravan

We cannot do this without you. We investigate powerful people, uncover scams, hold governments to account and report hard facts on conflicts and crises, all because we are independent of any outside interests. And since we answer to nobody but you, our readers, we need your support to keep our journalism alive.

COMMENTARY HEALTH

Uncritical support for Modi paved the way for India’s COVID-19 crisis

VIDYA KRISHNAN

28 April 2021

A man wearing personal protective equipment runs past burning funeral pyres during a mass cremation of COVID-19 casualties at a crematorium in Delhi, on 26 April 2021. The next day, India recorded 3,286 deaths, its highest number of COVID-19 fatalities so far, taking the total number of deaths in the country since the start of the pandemic to 201,187.

ADNAN ABIDI / REUTERS

India is a veritable chamber of horrors right now. Every day appears to mark a new record-highest number of daily cases, with the country witnessing 3,52,991 new COVID-19 cases and 2,812 deaths on 25 April. Patients are dying due to a lack of oxygen in hospitals—at least 24 patients died in a hospital in Nashik, in Maharashtra, on 21 April, and another 25 died in Delhi, the national capital, two days later. The next day, on 24 April, the solicitor general Tushar Mehta lied to the Supreme Court that the central government had “ensured that nobody in the country was left without oxygen.” Meanwhile, oxygen tankers are being blocked by state governments, and people have resorted to looting cylinders. This medical horror unfolding in the country was inevitable, given the leaders and the ideologies that India chose for herself.

It is also an experience of déjà vu. In August 2017, over 60 new-born babies, with chests the size of an adult human’s palm, died in less a week in a district hospital in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. The Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state, led by the chief minister Ajay Singh Bisht—more commonly known as Adityanath—denied that the deaths were a result of a shortage of oxygen, and maintains this narrative till date. A paediatrician at the hospital, Kafeel Khan, had accused the state government of not paying the hospital’s oxygen supplier, which led to the shortage and the deaths.

The state then arrested Khan and led a farcical investigation against him, as evidenced in the order releasing him on bail and the departmental inquiry absolving him of negligence. But the state did not conduct post-mortem examinations of the infants, did not hand over their medical records to their families, and sought to erase its negligence. As if the injustice did not matter until it was provable on paper. This greed and cruelty normalised under the BJP leadership is cancerous, and the scale at which it has infected the country is on display during this ongoing second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government has taken the difficult task of organising a pandemic response in a poor country like India and made it impossible. In April last year, after the pandemic hit India, the Modi administration extended a brutal lockdown without consulting the nation’s top scientists, adding an economic as well as humanitarian crisis to the medical emergency. As I reported for The Caravan earlier this month, the prime minister did not consult the national taskforce of India’s leading scientists in February and March this year either, despite the surge in cases.

After imposing the lockdown, Modi then invoked a draconian colonial-era law, the Epidemics Act of 1897—enacted during the bubonic plague of 1896—that focuses not on controlling the disease, but on cracking down on its subjects and suspending civil liberties. The Modi administration, of course, presented a narrative that it was using the law only in instances where healthcare workers had been targeted. As noted previously in The Caravan, the centre did not, however, enact several better legislations introduced the previous year that sought to protect healthcare workers.

Current Issue

April 2021

The lockdown, Indians were told, was to flatten the curve. Lav Agarwal, the joint secretary in the union health ministry, had stated shortly after that a Rs 15,000-crore package by the centre would be used for, among other things, “building resilient national and state health systems for future disease outbreaks.” But tenders for oxygen plants were not released till October 2020—eight months into the pandemic. That month, the centre issued tenders for 150 oxygen plants. As of April 2021, only 33 of them have been set up.

As India suffered its most devastating COVID-19 surge, its political parties and leaders—including Modi and his top lieutenant, the home minister Amit Shah—spent the last month focussed on an ongoing, eight-phased, gruelling blood sport of an election in West Bengal. The prime minister boasted of the large rallies he commanded—and gleefully catcalled the state’ incumbent chief minister Mamata Banerjee during one of them—with no apparent concern about the pandemic still ravaging the country. The polling in West Bengal began on 27 March. Within two weeks, the state recorded its highest-ever single-day spike with 5,892 new cases recorded on 14 April. Eleven days later, the state recorded 15,889 cases, and its capital city of Kolkata reported a positivity rate of approximately 50 percent.

On 21 March, amid the rising second wave, India's national dailies saw full-page ads in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited people to attend the Maha Kumbh in Uttarakhand.

Modi’s apparent lack of concern about the pandemic did not stop at electioneering. On 21 March, India’s national dailies showed a front-page full-size advertisement showing Modi and the Uttarakhand chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat welcoming devotees to the Maha Kumbh, a weeks-long Hindu religious festival. The previous day, Rawat had proclaimed, “Nobody will be stopped in the name of Covid-19 as we are sure the faith in God will overcome the fear of the virus.” Devotees attended in the millions, and soon began testing positive by the thousands. On 1 April, the day the super-spreader event began, the state recorded a total of 1,863 cases. On 26 April, it recorded 35,864 cases.

Contribute

The more you can help,

the more we can do

Support The Caravan

CONTRIBUTE

The pervasive grief felt by Indian citizens is only matched by the knowledge that they are on their own. On 20 April, in his first national broadcast after the onset of the second COVID-19 wave in the country, the prime minister appeared to confirm this knowledge without any sense of irony. “I request young colleagues to create small committees in their societies, localities and apartments and help others in following the COVID discipline,” Modi said. “If we do this, then governments will not need to create containment zones, impose curfew or lockdown.” The prime minister did little to explain or reassure the citizens about what his government was doing to help them.

As Modi noted in his address, without acknowledging his own failure, Indian citizens have come together to save themselves. All across social-media platforms and WhatsApp groups, users are inundated with desperate requests and leads to find their own oxygen cylinders, medications, tele-consult with doctors, and find a hospital bed. To the best of their availabilities, they respond with leads, noting the date and time that the information was verified. But as citizens discover with alarming regularity, there are no beds, no medicines, and no hospitals. There are no hearse vans to carry the dead to the graveyards. There is no wood to burn the pyres.

India's failed pandemic response is an inevitable consequence of the blind support, over two elections, to the anti-intellectual government led by Modi and the BJP. As I recently argued in The Atlantic, this is the greatest moral failure of our generation. It is India’s collective moral failure before it is the BJP’s political failure.

The blame for this cannot stop at one man, no matter how unfit for office he may be. It lies just as much at the feet of people who voted for this incompetence twice thinking it will never affect them, assuming their bubbles of concrete will keep them safe from the chaos being inflicted on others. The structure and actions of the Modi administration has stood in mockery of the citizens who ever placed their faith in it. And yet, the leaders of this administration have been rewarded with blind hero-worship, and that was the last blow to Indian democracy.

Since 2002, I’ve seen Modi rise to power with a dropped jaw. His career is a monument to treachery, to the power of majoritarianism in India, and to the horrors forgiven by the country to protect those who champion such majoritarianism. He has spent people’s lives as pocket change as he failed his way upwards, into the highest office in the land.

Throughout his career, Modi has shown an insatiable appetite to jail and threaten his own citizens, and let them die on his watch without accepting any responsibility. His two terms have been an era of derangement, through which he has asked us, the people of India, to turn a blind eye to the bloodletting in Kashmir, rampant gang-rapes of women, lynchings of Muslim minorities, caste atrocities against Dalits, and the spectre of detention camps in Assam. As if all of this was not bad enough, in this process, we have also made a Faustian bargain in signing up to hate our own neighbours, friends, and colleagues.

Today, as graveyards run out of space, we cannot pin it on Modi without a critical self-inventory of the role BJP voters played in this tragic story. It is a difficult conversation to have in a country filled with strife but it can no longer be avoided. Neither can the link between morals and politics be evaded.

The BJP secured 37.4 percent of the votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections—the highest ever received by the party in its history. A nation gets the government it deserves and, in small and big ways, every one of BJP’s voters who could make their peace with poor people dying in the name of economic prosperity contributed to this tragedy, particularly the upper castes, upper class and middle class.

The kind of people who quote scriptures from the Bhagavad Gita and discuss theories on free-market capitalism as they short-change their oppressed-caste domestic workers whom they refuse to give weekly offs. The kind who do not see the inhumanity of children begging at their BMW’s window as they drive to work, where they will not speak up against systemic corruption. The kind who find women “angry” when they bring up the sexual violence and turn a blind eye to the rampant practice of manual scavenging prevalent in the country.

Most of all, with their hearts full of cynicism and indifference, and theirs sleeves stained in blood, they award certificates of nationalism based on religion, gender and caste. They preferred WhatsApps that repeated convenient falsehoods over factual news reports that showcased the unpleasant realities. Their collective will and wilful apathy—towards the poor, the sick, the minorities—is the cement that holds this government together. They valourise greed, demonise the fight for social justice, and advise us to remain calm, after handing over power to a party that has no interest, and no skill, in the art of governance.

They handed power to the BJP, and now they chastise those who did not for bringing politics into everyday conversations, and without irony want us keep things positive instead of focussing on the viral apocalypse we are in. By aiding, abetting or ignoring one injustice at a time, they helped Modi subvert democracy in favour of authoritarian regimes. Through their fogged lens of good intentions and morally neutral positions, they are directly responsible for degrading out institution—courts, police stations, and hospitals.

The rich and middle-class citizen was entirely alright watching children choke to death in Gorakhpur, assuming that would never happen to him. Once the pandemic levelled the system, and the privileged found themselves without privilege for the first time, they fled, with no regard to the medical apartheid unfolding in hospitals created for the poor. They now act shocked when confronted with the fragility of their bubbles.

The cynical political decisions taken in the past seven years have come back to haunt us this last month. We have, as people, been wilfully unaware of the state of our health infrastructure for so long because it was claiming lives that did not matter to us. That bubble has now burst.

Our small and big moral failures have added up to design India’s pandemic response. On 27 April, India recorded 3,286 deaths, its highest number of COVID-19 fatalities so far, taking the total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic to 201,187. We created this veritable chamber of horrors

#Covid19 #India #crisis #pandemic

0 notes

ladystylestores · 5 years ago

Text

The Indian revolutionary who fought to overthrow British rule while living in Japan

The bomb was meant to kill him, but instead it peppered Hardinge’s back with shrapnel, killed his attendant and cast a shadow over a day that was meant to mark the transition of India’s capital to Delhi from Kolkata.

The mastermind of the attack was Rash Behari Bose, a 26-year-old Bengali revolutionary who initially posed as a British loyalist while secretly working to overthrow colonial rule.

The attack failed, but it gave Bose the opportunity to show the hundreds of people in attendance — and the world — that some Indians were prepared to expel the British by force.

After the failed assassination attempt, Bose’s five comrades were captured and took the stand in the Delhi Conspiracy trial, with one imprisoned for life and four others executed.

With a bounty on his head, Bose managed to flee India in 1915 to Japan, where he became a significant activist, reportedly introduced one of the country’s most popular curries and laid the foundations for the Indian National Army.

Today, the names of prominent Indian freedom fighters such as Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru have found their place in world history, but few have heard of Rash Behari Bose.

Yet in Japan his story has become something of a legend.

Foundings of rebellion

Bose was born in a village in northeastern Bengal in 1886 and grew up amid the severe famines that struck India during British rule.

The country’s colonial leaders had started to commercialize farming, collecting land revenue and encouraging the export of “cash crops” that contributed to severe food shortages when other harvests failed.

At the time, the average life expectancy for ordinary Indians was about 25 years compared to 44 in the United Kingdom.

The disparities nurtured a nationalist movement which led to the formation of the Indian National Congress, a party for Indians interested in reform and greater political autonomy.

Bose also wanted a greater say in his own future and was prepared to take up arms to get it, according to Elizabeth Eston and Lexi Kawabe, the authors of “Rash Behari Bose: The father of the Indian National Army.”

After leaving school, he made unsuccessful attempts to join the Indian Army before landing a clerk’s job with the Forest Research Institute at Dehradun, in the northern state of Uttarakhand.

Bose had wanted a role that would allow him to give the impression of being a loyal British subject while he worked on dismantling British rule from the inside, according to Eston and Kawabe.

With the Forest Research Institute he was able to travel around India and used the opportunity to secretly forge anti-colonial revolutionary networks, they wrote.

For several years, India’s colonial rulers didn’t suspect a thing.

Bengali fury

Bose was still in his teens in 1905 when the British partitioned Bengal into two new provinces, supposedly for administrative reasons, though it appeared to be split along religious lines.

Like other Bengali Hindu nationalists, Bose was incensed.

Bengal had been a key location for India’s anti-British opposition and Bengali Hindus saw the partition as a way for the British to weaken their power base. The move was largely supported by Muslims.

Nationalist protests erupted across Bengal. The non-violent camp sought to undermine British rule through economic boycotts, while a more ruthless cohort attempted to assassinate British officials, according to Joseph McQuade, author of “The New Asia of Rash Behari Bose: India, Japan, and the Limits of the International, 1912-1945.”

Bose fell into the latter camp. His attempted assassination of Hardinge triggered a massive manhunt, but his previous efforts to ingratiate himself with the British elite served him well, according to Eston and Kawabe.

He managed to stay under the radar until his links to the independence movement were revealed in 1913 by a police raid on a comrade, they wrote.

Investigators seized a briefcase he’d left at the property — his cover was blown.

The Lahore plot

Bose was on the run when he organized one of his most audacious plans.

After the assassination attempt against Lord Hardinge, Bose became well known among revolutionary circles in India. With the British distracted by World War I, he planned to spark a mutiny similar to the uprising of 1857 — when Indian soldiers serving under British rulers had rebelled, McQuade wrote.

Indian revolutionaries from America, Canada and Germany made their way to India in 1914 and contacted several army units across India and even in Singapore, with each agreeing to defect once called upon. The date for the start of the rebellion was set for February 21, 1915, in Lahore.

But as spies infiltrated the movement, the British started disarming Indian soldiers, wrote Eston and Kawabe.

Undeterred, Bose moved the start of the rebellion to February 19 — but the simultaneous plot was suppressed by counter-intelligence operations that saw many revolutionaries executed, imprisoned and exiled.

With the authorities on his heels and a bounty on his head, Bose decided he was no longer safe in India.

Disguising himself as a relative of the poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, Bose set sail for Japan from the Port of Kolkata on May 12, 1915.

He never went back.

Looking to Japan

As a British ally, Japan may seem like an odd safe haven for a Bengali freedom fighter fleeing British retribution.

But Japan had a long history of pro-Indian sentiment, dating back to India’s exportation of Buddhism to Japan via the Korean peninsula in the 6th century.

Centuries later, many freedom fighters were starting to look east.

Japan’s rapid industrialization and victory in 1905 over Russia in the Russo-Japanese war altered the balance of power in Asia and fueled nationalist movements in India and the Middle East, according to McQuade.

The unexpected rise of an Asian nation gave freedom fighters like Bose hope. They thought Japan, with the rest of Asia, would be able to challenge Western hegemony.

Western powers such as Britain, France and Portugal had gained control of vast swathes of territory across Asia and Africa while building up their empires as early as the 15th century.

Under the guise of trade missions, they exploited the natural resources found across those territories and sought to “bring civilization” to the people there. Between 1765 and 1938, Britain is estimated to have drained nearly $45 trillion from India in unfair trade and tax, according to economist Utsa Patnaik.

Even though Japan was a British ally between 1902 to 1923, it had kept its doors open to revolutionaries who wanted to end British rule in India.

At the time, Japan was emerging as a center for Pan Asianist ideology. The Pan Asianists wanted to rectify what they saw as an unjust international system. Some wanted to articulate the experiences of non-Western people. Others wanted to establish Japan’s leadership in Asia by pushing Western powers from the region.

Dodging British authorities

In Japan, Bose laid low.

The British embassy had hired a private Japanese detective agency to track him down, according to Eston and Kawabe.

He aimed to go to Shanghai to gather weapons to send back to revolutionaries in India, but in the meantime he hid in a house in Tokyo’s Azabu district. There, he discreetly met with Sun Yat-sen, the head of the revolutionary army of China, wrote Eston and Kawabe.

Sun was in exile in Tokyo after a failed armed uprising against the Qing government and wanted to rouse support from Japan for an armed revolution in China.

Sun introduced Bose to Mitsuru Toyama, an influential figure among Japanese political circles and the leader of Pan-Asianist group Gen’yosha, which was later deemed an ultra-nationalist organization and closed down by the American occupying forces after Japan’s defeat in World War II.

Toyama knew just the place to shelter Bose, Eston and Kawabe said.

The “Nakamuraya Salon,” as it was known among Tokyo locals and intelligentsia, was a bakery and cafe located in the bustling Shinjuku district.

Owners Aizo and Kokko Soma were a Christian couple with a deep interest in the arts, literature and other cultures. Toyama convinced them to shelter Bose from the British authorities in a small guesthouse in their backyard. He stayed there for four months and in subsequent years moved multiple times to avoid detection.

In 1918, to protect him from capture, Toyama encouraged Bose to marry Soma’s eldest daughter Toshiko.

According to Eston and Kawabe, the marriage was devised to ease Bose’s integration into Japanese society so he could keep fighting for Indian independence. It also made it easier for Bose to become a Japanese citizen in 1923.

The couple had two children before disaster struck.

The dream of a new world order

Toshiko died from pneumonia in 1925. She was 27 years old.

Bose threw himself into the independence movement to overcome his grief.

Eager to build cultural ties between Japan and India, he established and ran numerous associations such as the Indo-Japanese Friends Society and a hostel called “Villa Asians” for Asian students studying in Tokyo, which he managed until 1941, according to Eri Hotta, in “Pan-Asianism and Japan’s War 1931-1945.”

He published widely on India’s past, promoted ties between India and Japan, and seized every chance to advocate for a Pan-Asian union to strengthen the region.

Bose was becoming bolder with his public profile and was regularly featured in Japanese newspapers.

When Bose came to Japan, only educated Japanese knew about India, which back then was known as “Tenjiku,” meaning “land of heavens” in Japanese. People dubbed Bose “tenrai,” which means heavenly being, according to Kawabe.

All the while, the British kept an eye on him.

Fearful of his influence on a younger generation of Indians, the colonial British government made it difficult for Indian students to travel to Japan in the 1930s, according to McQuade.

They had good reason to be suspicious.

‘India’s cry’

In 1931, Bose organized the first Indian Independence League in Japan, which aimed to attain the “independence of India by all possible means,” according to a declassified CIA document.

He enlisted Indian students to help and V. C Lingam, a student from Singapore — then Malaya — who chose to study in Japan, recounts traveling to Vietnam, Bangkok and Singapore to recruit locals for the organization for the independence from British colonial rule, according to the Japan Times.

“The league became bigger, and Bose became leader of the movement throughout East Asia,” Lingam told the Japan Times in 2007.

Two years later, Bose received funding to publish a journal called “The New Asia,” which was distributed in English and Japanese.

Though that journal was banned in India and didn’t mention Japanese aggression in China, Bose “urged the Japanese government to cooperate with the United States, China, and the Soviet Union in a move to eliminate British colonial control in Asia,” according to Cemil Aydin, a historian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel.

For Bose, Britain was the ultimate enemy — and a US-Japan conflict would only play in the country’s favor.

In the lead up to World War II, relations between England and Japan had soured considerably. By 1933, Japan had quit the League of Nations, the international diplomatic group set up after World War I to find peaceful resolutions.

The strained relations removed any incentive for the Japanese government to limit Bose’s political activities, according to McQuade.

In 1938, after Bose published “Indo no sakebi” (India’s cry) — which strongly denounced British rule in India — British authorities classified him as a Japanese agent intent on spreading terrorist propaganda.

By then, there was no way Japan was handing him over.

Trouble on the horizon

Japan was hit especially hard by the Great Depression of the 1930s as agricultural and textile prices fell.

Amid the economic downturn, some radicalized Pan-Asianists gained control of Japanese politics, and the idea that Japan could solve its economic problems through military conquests gradually gained currency.

During World War II, India’s independence was an integral part of the Japanese military government’s Pan-Asianist program. For example, in 1941 Major Iwaichi Fujiwara had established Fujiwara Kikan, a Japanese intelligence operations unit tasked with supporting independence movements in British India, Malaya and Netherlands East Indies.

But as Japan launched its ruthless campaign across the Asia-Pacific during Word War II, many prominent Indian freedom fighters like Ananda Mohan Sahay and Raja Mahendra Pratdap grew wary of the country and its colonization of the rest of Asia.

Bose, on the other hand, never spoke up — even after the country invaded China and the Korean peninsula, according to Takeshi Nakajima, author of “Bose of Nakamuraya: An Indian Revolutionary in Japan.”

“Though Bose felt conflicted by the gap between what Japan said it wanted to achieve for Asia and the reality, his friendships with the Japanese and citizenship made it impossible for him to dissent,” Nakajima said.

It wasn’t long before other Indians began to see him as a Japanese puppet and a collaborator with Japan’s militarist regime, argues Eri Hotta in her paper “Rash Behari Bose and his Japanese supporters.”

Regardless of how others viewed him, Bose was convinced the Japanese military could be used to liberate India. He kept up his efforts to mobilize supporters in Japan and across southeast Asia.

On February 15, 1942, British commanders in Singapore surrendered the British Empire’s forces, numbering more than 120,000 in Malaysia and Singapore, to the Japanese, in what became known as the largest military capitulation in British history.

It coincided with Japan’s campaign to persuade Indian prisoners of war in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore to fight alongside the Japanese for the liberation of India. After the battle over Singapore, Fujiwara asked Indian military officer Mohan Singh to form an Indian army from the captured Indian soldiers there.

In June of that same year, Bose chaired the Indian Independence Conference in Bangkok, sponsored by Japan. There, he was appointed to lead the Indian National Army (INA) and the tens of thousands of Indian prisoners Singh had recruited to fight alongside the Japanese. They planned to conquer the British in India.

It was Bose’s most high-profile role and one that seemed destined to ensure his name entered Indian folklore.

But it was not to be.

Today, another man named Bose is much more closely associated with the INA than Rash Behari.

Subhas Chandra Bose, a better-known nationalist in India, took over in 1943, after tensions arose between Singh and Behari Bose. Chandra Bose steadily built the Indian National Army’s ranks, convincing a greater number of Indian prisoners of war to fight for independence, according to the CIA document.

As Chandra Bose became a popular figure in Japan, Behari Bose’s health and presence at the forefront of the Indian independence movement started to fade.

Behari Bose died in 1945 just before India gained independence from British rule in 1947 — a victory he’d worked his whole life to achieve.

In India, there is now a tourism center dedicated to him in his birthplace. And in Japan, his legacy is immortalized in a well-loved curry dish at Nakamuraya, which Behari Bose is said to have popularized during his decades-long struggle for Indian independence.

Behari Bose laid the foundations of the Indian Independence League and the Indian National Army, according to Eston and Kawabe.

Right until the end, he stood by his conviction to change the status quo. And to this day, he remains one of India’s unsung freedom fighters.

CNN’s Yoko Wakatsuki contributed to this report from Tokyo. Edited by Hilary Whiteman and Jenni Marsh.

Source link

قالب وردپرس

from World Wide News https://ift.tt/2AhBV3F

#World Wide News

1 note · View note

sandeepachetan · 6 years ago

Photo

Greens are awesome right now, where we are. In Garhwal. We've been to Garhwal twice now. First, in the monsoon and now. Seeing the spring transitioning into summer. Days get hotter, the sun stronger. The power of a river - we see what it means strongly in Garhwal. The last time, we were visiting The Goat Village, in Raithal. Near Uttarkashi. Where the river Bhagirathi flows down from Gangotri. Water was not a problem. Farming was possible. This time, we were in Pauri Garhwal. Away from the big rivers. Acute water shortage. Everyone buys water. No agriculture. Dry farmlands. But in both cases, the problem of migration and ghost villages is evident. Which is where companies like the Green People (who run TGV) come into play. If you're curious about what this all is, we wrote about it here https://sandeepachetan.com/digital-detox-himalayas-uttarakhand/ Now that we are spending time here in Uttarakhand, we want to connect with more rural and sustainable tourism initiatives. Do you know of any? Do you run any? We would love to know. Have you visited any tourism initiative focussed on reverse migration? How was your experience? Tell us! (at Garhwal, Uttarakhand, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/BxOyuDRAfGP/?igshid=1r8d27yjncjhc

2 notes · View notes

brajeshupadhyay · 5 years ago

Text

Coronavirus Outbreak LIVE Updates: Delhi L-G orders 5-day mandatory institutional quarantine for COVID-19 patients, AAP calls decision 'arbitrary'

08:28 (IST)

Coronavirus Outbreak in Delhi Latest Updates

AAP calls Delhi L-G decision on mandatory 5-day institutional quarantine for COVID-19 patients 'arbitrary'

No COVID-19 patient must be allowed to undergo home isolation before mandatory five-day institutional quarantine, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal said in an order, prompting a sharp response from the Delhi government, which has been grappling with an acute shortage of hospital beds.

Blaming lack of "physical contact to monitor patients" during home isolation for the spurt of coronavirus cases in the National Capital, Baijal directed the authorities to conduct physical surveillance of those in self-quarantine.

"Delhi is reviewed regularly in the Ministry of Home Affairs and it was observed that 'home isolation' without physical contact to monitor the patients may be a reason for increase in spread of increase in COVID-19 infections in Delhi," Baijal said in a letter to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and top officials of the Delhi government.

08:14 (IST)

Coronavirus Outbreak in Maharashtra Latest Updates

Dean of medical college in Latur gets show-cause notice for asking COVID-19 patient to buy medicines

Director of Directorate of Medical Education & Research, Maharashtra, issues show-cause notice to the Dean of a government hospital in Latur district for allegedly asking a COVID-19 patient to buy medicines from the market.

He has been asked to respond to the notice within three days, reported ANI.

08:07 (IST)

Coronavirus Outbreak in Mizoram Latest Updates

10 new COVID-19 cases in Mizoram take total to 140

With 10 more people testing positive for COVID-19 in Mizoram, the total number of confirmed cases in the state rose to 140, informed the Department of Information and Public Relations, Government of Mizoram on Saturday. Of the total, there are 131 active coronavirus cases.

At least nine patients have recovered so far.

07:56 (IST)

Coronavirus Outbreak in Delhi Latest Updates

Delhi reports 3,137 COVID-19 cases for first time in single day

With 3,137 new positive cases, Delhi reported the highest number of COVID-19 infections in a single day taking the total in the National Capital to 53,116 on Saturday.

The toll climbed to 2,035 after 66 more people succumbed to the viral disease in the past 24 hours.

07:40 (IST)

Coronavirus Outbreak in Assam Latest Updates

Assam reports 5,006 coronavirus cases with nine deaths

At least 102 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Assam, taking the total number of infections to 5,006 on Saturday, ANI quoted health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma as saying.

Of the total, there are 1,928 active cases while, nine deaths have been reported so far, said Sarma.

At least 3,066 patients have been discharged taking the COVID-19 recovery rate to 61.25 percent in the state.

Coronavirus Outbreak LATEST Updates: No COVID-19 patient must be allowed to undergo home isolation before mandatory five-day institutional quarantine, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal said in an order, prompting a sharp response from the Delhi government, which has been grappling with an acute shortage of hospital beds.

The number of coronavirus cases in India rose by 13,586 pushing the nationwide tally to 3,80,532, while the toll rose to 12,573 with 336 new fatalities, according to the Union health ministry data.

On the other hand, the number of recoveries reached 2,04,710, while there are a total of 1,63,248 active cases, according to the updated official figure at 8 am. "Thus, around 53.79 percent patients have recovered so far," an official was quoted as saying by PTI.

India is the fourth worst-hit nation by the pandemic after the US, Brazil and Russia. According to the Johns Hopkins University, which has been compiling COVID-19 data from all over the world, India is at the eighth position in terms of the death toll.

According to health ministry's data, of the 336 new deaths reported till Friday morning, 100 were in Maharashtra, 65 in Delhi, 49 in Tamil Nadu, 31 in Gujarat, 30 in Uttar Pradesh, 12 each in Karnataka and West Bengal, 10 in Rajasthan, six in Jammu and Kashmir, five in Punjab, four each in Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, three in Telangana, two in Andhra Pradesh and one each in Assam, Jharkhand and Kerala.

Of the total 12,573 deaths, Maharashtra accounted for the highest 5,751 fatalities followed by Delhi with 1,969 deaths, Gujarat with 1,591, Tamil Nadu with 625, West Bengal with 518, Madhya Pradesh with 486, Uttar Pradesh with 465, Rajasthan with 323 and Telangana with 195 deaths.

The COVID-19 death toll reached 134 in Haryana, 114 in Karnataka, 92 in Andhra Pradesh, 83 in Punjab, 71 in Jammu and Kashmir, 44 in Bihar, 26 in Uttarakhand, 21 in Kerala and 11 in Odisha. Jharkhand has registered 11 deaths, Chhattisgarh 10, Assam 9, Himachal Pradesh 8, Puducherry 7, Chandigarh 6 while Meghalaya, Tripura and Ladakh have reported 1 fatality each, according to the Health Ministry.

More than 70 percent deaths took place due to comorbidities, the ministry said.

India has witnessed a surge of 1,89,997 infections from 1 to 19 June with Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh among the top five states that have seen a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases.

Maharashtra has reported maximum number of cases at 1,20,504 followed by Tamil Nadu at 52,334, Delhi at 49,979, Gujarat at 25,601, Uttar Pradesh at 15,181, Rajasthan at 13,857 and West Bengal at 12,735, according to the Health Ministry's data.

The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 11,426 in Madhya Pradesh, 9,218 in Haryana, 7,944 in Karnataka, 7,518 in Andhra Pradesh and 7,025 in Bihar.

It has risen to 6,027 in Telangana, 5,555 in Jammu and Kashmir, 4,777 in Assam and 4,512 in Odisha. Punjab has reported 3,615 novel coronavirus cases so far, while Kerala has 2,794 cases.

A total of 2,102 people have been infected by the virus in Uttarakhand, 1,946 in Chhattisgarh, 1,920 in Jharkhand, 1,155 in Tripura, 705 in Goa, 687 in Ladakh, 606 in Manipur and 595 in Himachal Pradesh.

Chandigarh has registered 374 COVID-19 cases, Puducherry has 271 cases, Nagaland has 193, Mizoram has 130, Arunachal Pradesh has 103, Sikkim has 70,

Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu together have reported 58 COVID-19 cases.

Meghalaya and Andaman and Nicobar Islands have registered 44 infections each so far.

"Our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR," the ministry said, adding 8,927 cases are being reassigned to states.

State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it added.

Delhi health minister's condition deteriorates

Additionally, Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain was admitted to the ICU after being diagnosed with pneumonia. He had tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday along with AAP MLA Atishi and two senior functionaries in the Delhi government.

An official statement was quoted by News18 as saying that Jain "has been put on oxygen support after his lung infection worsened".

"Jain has been shifted to Saket's Max Hospital, where he will be administered plasma therapy for COVID-19," the report added.

MHA caps cost of isolation beds in Delhi pvt hospitals

Meanwhile, a high-powered committee set up by Home Minister Amit Shah recommended fixing the cost of an COVID-19 isolation bed in private hospitals in Delhi in the range of Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 and an ICU bed with ventilator at Rs 15,000-Rs 18,000 per day, the Home Ministry said on Friday.

The committee, under the chairmanship of NITI Aayog member VK Paul, was constituted on Sunday to ensure the availability of 60 percent beds by private hospitals at lower rates and fix the rate of coronavirus testing and treatment.

"The committee has recommended Rs 8,000-10,000, Rs 13,000-15,000 and Rs 15,000-18,000 including PPE costs for isolation bed, ICUs without and with ventilator, respectively, to all hospitals as compared to the current charges of Rs 24,000-25,000, 34,000-43,000 and 44,000-54,000 (excluding PPE cost)," the spokesperson of the Ministry of Home Affairs tweeted.

The spokesperson said the committee was set up by Shah to provide relief to the common man in the national capital and to fix rates charged by private hospitals in Delhi for isolation beds, ICUs without ventilator support and ICUs with ventilator support.

The Delhi government has also capped the rate of COVID-19 RT-PCR test at Rs 2,400 with the city witnessing an alarming spurt in coronavirus cases.

SC asks Centre to fix uniform testing rate in all states

The Supreme Court Friday took note of the differences in COVID-19 testing charges in various states and asked the Centre to decide on the issue, and said all states should set up panel of experts to inspect hospitals to ensure proper care of the patients.

A bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, SK Kaul and MR Shah, which would pass the order later, observed during the hearing that there should be uniformity in COVID-19 testing charge in all states.

It indicated, however, that the court will not venture into the fixation of the charges which will be taken care of by the Centre.

It said the court may also consider passing an order for installation of CCTVs in hospitals to ensure monitoring of patient care.

Additionally, the apex court also directed the Centre to ensure that migrant workers wanting to return to their home states before the deadline of 24 June. The court reiterated that those travelling should not be asked to pay any part of the fare.

DGCI approves restricted use of antiviral drug Favipiravir

In the meantime, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) on Friday approved restricted use of antiviral drug Favipiravir for COVID-19 treatment.

According to News18, the DCGI's directions for the use of Favipiravir stipulate that it "can be used only in case of emergency and family consent will be mandatory. Course duration is 14 days and conditions of the first 1,000 patients will be monitored".

Glenmark will conduct phase 3 clinical trials of Favipiravir with 150 patients, the report added.

WHO says COVID-19 vaccine likely by year-end

The World Health Organisation's chief scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, on Thursday said that the agency is optimistic and hopeful that the COVID-19 vaccines could be available before the end of this year.

Addressing a press briefing from Geneva on the latest coronavirus drug trial findings, the top WHO scientist also said that clinical trials have now definitively shown that anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine does not have an impact on preventing deaths from COVID-19.

"I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic, but vaccine development is a complex undertaking and comes with a lot of uncertainty. The good thing is we have many different vaccine candidates and platforms," she said, adding that WHO's focus is also on accelerating and scaling up a potential vaccine.

"If we are lucky, there will be one or two successful candidates before the end of this year," she said. There are about 10 candidates which are in human testing phase and at least three of them are entering the new promising phase-three stage which proves a vaccine's efficacy.

Global scenario on COVID-19

Globally, the pandemic is waxing and waning in many places, with numbers of cases soaring in Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico (besides India) but appearing to be under control or contained in Thailand, Japan, Vietnam and New Zealand.

On Friday, Britain, which has Europe’s highest pandemic toll with more than 42,000 virus-related deaths and over 300,000 confirmed cases, lowered its coronavirus threat level one notch Friday, becoming the latest country to claim it's getting a national outbreak under control.

Meanwhile, Germany reported the country's highest daily increase in virus cases in a month after managing to contain its outbreak better than comparable large European nations. The Robert Koch Institute, Germany's disease control center, listed 770 new confirmed cases, taking the country's total to 188,534.

Japan released an app Friday, using technology developed by Apple and Google, to help trace people who may have been exposed to the virus. Officials say data will only be recorded and stored in individual users' phones and deleted after 14 days to protect their privacy.

Singaporeans were able to wine and dine at restaurants, work out at the gym and socialise with up to five people at a time as of Friday, after the city-state removed most of its pandemic lockdown restrictions.

China declared a fresh outbreak in Beijing under control after confirming 25 new cases among some 360,000 people tested. That was up by just four from a day earlier.

In South Korea, outbreaks have inspired second-guessing on whether officials were too quick to ease social distancing guidelines in April after a first wave of infections waned. Officials reported 49 cases of COVID-19 on Friday as the virus continues to spread in the densely populated capital area of Seoul, where half of its 51 million people live. About 30 to 50 new cases have been confirmed per day since late May.

The novel coronavirus has infected more than 85 lakh people worldwide and killed more than 4,54,000, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The actual number is thought to be much higher because many cases are asymptomatic or go untested.

In the United States, which has reported the most confirmed cases at nearly 22 lakh, states have pushed ahead with emerging from full or partial pandemic shutdowns despite surges in new cases in many places, including Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and California.

Aid group Doctors without Borders said Friday that at least 10 cases of COVID-19 were confirmed at one of the world’s largest refugee camps, the sprawling Dadaab complex in Kenya.

With inputs from agencies

via Blogger https://ift.tt/3evlK21

#Blogger #followme instagood art friends beautiful prilaga like4like likeforlike fashion na

0 notes

iasshikshalove · 5 years ago

Text

Daily Current Affairs 04th June 2020

AMMENDMENT TO ESSENTIAL COMMODITIES ACT

CONTEXT

The Union Cabinet has approved an amendment to the 65-year-old Essential Commodities Act, removing cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes from the list of essential commodities.

ESSENTIAL COMMODITY ACT 1955

Under the EC Act, powers of the Central Government have already been delegated to the States by way of orders during 1972 to 1978. The States/UTs, therefore may take action against the offenders.

What is Essential Commodities Act?

The ECA was enacted way back in 1955.

It has since been used by the Government to regulate the production, supply and distribution of a whole host of commodities it declares ‘essential’ in order to make them available to consumers at fair prices.

The list of items under the Act include drugs, fertilisers, pulses and edible oils, and petroleum and petroleum products.

The Centre can include new commodities as and when the need arises, and take them off the list once the situation improves.

Under the Act, the government can also fix the maximum retail price (MRP) of any packaged product that it declares an “essential commodity”.

How it works?

If the Centre finds that a certain commodity is in short supply and its price is spiking, it can notify stock-holding limits on it for a specified period.

The States act on this notification to specify limits and take steps to ensure that these are adhered to.

Anybody trading or dealing in a commodity , be it wholesalers, retailers or even importers are prevented from stockpiling it beyond a certain quantity.

A State can, however, choose not to impose any restrictions. But once it does, traders have to immediately sell into the market any stocks held beyond the mandated quantity.

NEED FOR AMMENDMENT

While India has become surplus in most Agri-commodities, farmers have been unable to get better prices due to lack of investment in cold storage, warehouses, processing and export as the entrepreneurial spirit gets dampened due to hanging sword of Essential Commodities Act. Farmers suffer huge losses when there are bumper harvests, especially of perishable commodities. With adequate processing facilities, much of this wastage can be reduced.

Benefits

With the amendment to Essential Commodities Act, commodities like cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes will be removed from list of essential commodities. This will remove fears of private investors of excessive regulatory interference in their business operations.

The freedom to produce, hold, move, distribute and supply will lead to harnessing of economies of scale and attract private sector/foreign direct investment into agriculture sector. It will help drive up investment in cold storages and modernization of food supply chain.

It will create competitive market environment and also prevent wastage of Agri-produce that happens due to lack of storage facilities.

Safeguarding interest of consumers

The Government, while liberalizing the regulatory environment, has also ensured that interests of consumers are safeguarded. It has been provided in the Amendment, that in situations such as war, famine, extraordinary price rise and natural calamity, such agricultural foodstuff can be regulated. However, the installed capacity of a value chain participant and the export demand of an exporter will remain exempted from such stock limit imposition so as to ensure that investments in agriculture are not discouraged.

ONE INDIA, INE AGRICULTURE MARKETCONTEXT

Cabinet approved ‘The Farming Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020’.

Background

Farmers in India today suffer from various restrictions in marketing their produce. There are restrictions for farmers in selling Agri-produce outside the notified APMC market yards. The farmers are also restricted to sell the produce only to registered licensees of the State Governments. Further, Barriers exist in free flow of agriculture produce between various States owing to the prevalence of various APMC legislations enacted by the State Governments.

Benefits

The Ordinance will create an ecosystem where the farmers and traders will enjoy freedom of choice of sale and purchase of Agri-produce. It will also promote barrier-free inter-state and intra-state trade and commerce outside the physical premises of markets notified under State Agricultural Produce Marketing legislations. This is a historic-step in unlocking the vastly regulated agriculture markets in the country.

It will open more choices for the farmer, reduce marketing costs for the farmers and help them in getting better prices. It will also help farmers of regions with surplus produce to get better prices and consumers of regions with shortages, lower prices. The ordinance also proposes an electronic trading in transaction platform for ensuring a seamless trade electronically.

The farmers will not be charged any cess or levy for sale of their produce under this Act. Further there will be a separate dispute resolution mechanism for the farmers.

One India, One Agriculture Market

The ordinance basically aims at creating additional trading opportunities outside the APMC market yards to help farmers get remunerative prices due to additional competition. This will supplement the existing MSP procurement system which is providing stable income to farmers.

It will certainly pave the way for creating One India, One Agriculture Market and will lay the foundation for ensuring golden harvests for our hard-working farmers.

CONTRACT FARMINGCONTEXT

Cabinet approved ‘The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020’.

HOW THE PRODUCE REACH CONSUMERS?

NEED FOR ORDINANCE

Indian Agriculture is characterized by fragmentation due to small holding sizes and has certain weaknesses such as weather dependence, production uncertainties and market unpredictability. This makes agriculture risky and inefficient in respect of both input & output management.

Benefits

The ordinance will empower farmers for engaging with processors, wholesalers, aggregators, wholesalers, large retailers, exporters etc., on a level playing field without any fear of exploitation. It will transfer the risk of market unpredictability from the farmer to the sponsor and also enable the farmer to access modern technology and better inputs. It will reduce cost of marketing and improve income of farmers.

This Ordinance will act as a catalyst to attract private sector investment for building supply chains for supply of Indian farm produce to global markets. Farmers will get access to technology and advice for high value agriculture and get ready market for such produce.

Farmers will engage in direct marketing thereby eliminating intermediaries resulting in full realization of price. Farmers have been provided adequate protection. Sale, lease or mortgage of farmers’ land is totally prohibited and farmers’ land is also protected against any recovery. Effective dispute resolution mechanism has been provided for with clear time lines for redressal.

INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT ALONG BORDER WITH CHINACONTEXT

To ramp up infrastructure along the china border, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has decided to spend 10% funds of a Centrally sponsored scheme only on border projects in Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarkhand and Sikkim.

ROADMAP AND DETAILS

According to the new guidelines approved by Union Home Minister Amit Shah effective April 1, the projects for developing strategically important villages and towns in border areas that have been identified by the border guarding forces, will be given priority

The new BADP guidelines said, “10% of the total allocated funds will be additionally allocated to the States/UTs abutting Indo-China border [Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Sikkim and Uttarakhand] for taking up works/projects in the districts abutting Indo-China border.

Construction of roads, bridges, culverts, primary schools, health infrastructure, playfields, irrigation works, mini-stadiums, indoor courts for basketball, badminton and table tennis can be undertaken within 10 km of the border from the BADP funds.

The creation of infrastructure “would help integrate these areas with the hinterland, create a positive perception of care by the country and encourage people to stay on in the border areas leading to safe and secure borders.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Recent incursions by chinese army are more severe than the past as the stand off is at multiple points.

China has the advantage of superior infrastructure along the border which is a point of concern for india and also china increased activity along pakistan occupied kashmir under the project china pakistan economic corridor.

Connection of border areas to hinter lands increase their economic and social stability.

Attempts to resolve the issue:

The rapprochement between the two countries in 1976 enabled India and China to initiate High Level border talks in 1981 to find a solution to the vexed problem. After eight rounds, the talks broke down in 1987.

In 1988, following Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China, the Joint Working Group (JWG) was set up to look into the border problem.

In 1993, the Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) was signed and the India-China Expert Group of Diplomatic and Military Officers was set up to assist the JWG.

In 1996, the Agreement on Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) in the Military Field along the LAC was signed.

In 2003, two special representatives (one each from India and China) were appointed to find a political solution to the border dispute.

Till 2009, these two special representatives had held 17 rounds of talks, but it seems they have not made much headway.

0 notes

cvrnewsdirectindia · 6 years ago

Text

RBI report: States flouting UDAY norms on taking over discom losses

With the coupon rate on Uday bonds at a premium over those on state-development-loans bonds, the cost of debt servicing has gone up for these states.

Out of the Rs 2,726-crore funding that states were supposed to provide in FY19 against the losses of their power distribution companies (discoms), they have shelled out only Rs1,311 crore, the recent study on state finances published by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) pointed out. While discoms show no significant sign of recovery, as per the Uday norms, state finances would come under additional pressure going ahead as they are mandated to fund a progressively higher share of discom losses from their own finances.

As per the provision of the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (Uday), states are supposed to take over 5% of discom losses in FY18, 10% in FY19, 25% in FY20 and 50% in FY21. Even as they managed to pay Rs1,299 crore against the requirement of Rs1,602 crore in FY18, “incomplete compliance” is already on the rise, the RBI study suggested. Government finances of 16 states which signed comprehensive financial and operational turnaround agreements under Uday are already burdened with the Rs2.1 lakh crore worth of Uday bonds.

With the coupon rate on Uday bonds at a premium over those on state-development-loans bonds, the cost of debt servicing has gone up for these states. “The impact on state finances is likely to continue much beyond the terminal year due to interest payment on Uday bonds and redemption of these bonds,” RBI cautioned. Except Uttarakhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Chhattisgarh and Goa, expenditure on power exceeds receipts from the sector.

Apart from Uday, the recently implemented payment security mechanism for power generating companies, which mandates state-run discoms to open and maintain adequate letter of credit (LC) as payment security to power plants to receive power, is seen to eat into state government funds earmarked for other social welfare schemes. According to a recent note by SBICAP Securities, banks have been demanding additional guarantees from traditionally weak discoms to issue LCs and the respective state governments are coming to rescue. “State governments, fearing power shortages, are likely to divert funds from planned spending in other sectors/social schemes, so it is those schemes that would face the music in the near term in the form of shortfalls/delays,” SBICAP Securities said. Discoms’ financial losses stood at Rs28,369 crore at the end of FY19, up 88.6% year-on-year. Overdues—payment

default of 60 days or more—from discom to power producers were at Rs59,204 crore at August-end. Discoms face cash-flow issues because they state electricity regulators infrequently and inadequately raise consumer tariffs. Dues from bulk consumers such as state government departments and local civic bodies, pegged at a whopping Rs41,000 crore at May-end, have also significantly impaired the discoms’ ability to turnaround.

from CVR News Direct https://cvrnewsdirect.com/rbi-report-states-flouting-uday-norms-on-taking-over-discom-losses/

0 notes

woltapowersystem1-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Find Solar Street Light Manufacturer in Rajasthan, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand

Wolta Power System is a well-known company reckoned as a solar street light manufacturer in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Bihar etc. The company is providing a wide range of solar light systems at a reasonable price.

With the establishment of the solar street light system, the complexity of heavy electric consumption or dependency on power cut off has been reduced. In the midst of the shortage of traditional light system and decreased power of the power grid, social light systems have emerged as an excellent option in the national capital. They’re independent of the utility grid.

We are having a brand name & recognized as a solar street light producer in Uttarakhand, solar street light manufacturer in Rajasthan, solar street light manufacturer in Bihar, solar street light manufacturer in Chhattisgarh, solar street light manufacturer in Jharkhand etc.

If you want to buy street light then feel free to contact Wolta Power System.

#solar street light manufacturer in Uttarakhand #solar street light manufacturer in Rajasthan #solar street light manufacturer in Bihar #solar street light manufacturer in Chhattisgarh #solar street light manufacturer in Jharkhand

0 notes

phooll123 · 7 years ago

Text

More than 110 killed by high-intensity dust storms in India

By Swati Gupta and Ben Westcott, CNN

Updated at 1252 GMT (2052 HKT) May 3, 2018

Play Video

Violent dust storms sweep Northern India 01:23

New Delhi (CNN) — Fierce

New Delhi (CNN) — Fierce winds and lightning strikes created by a powerful dust storm have killed around 110 people and injured hundreds more in northwestern India since late Wednesday, according to local authorities.

In the state of Rajasthan, at least 35 people died and more than 200 were injured after winds downed more than 8,000 electricity poles and uprooted hundreds of trees, officials told CNN.

"This has resulted in widespread electricity cuts and water shortages. Most of the deaths occurred after walls and roofs of houses collapsed in the middle of the night," Jaipur District Divisional Commissioner T Ravi Kant said.

An Indian traffic policeman covering his face as he stands on duty during a dust storm in New Delhi on May 2.

In neighboring Uttar Pradesh, the death toll stood at at least 73, with the vast majority of those deaths occurring in the city of Agra, where so far 43 have been confirmed dead. Four people were also killed in Uttarakhand.

According to Sanjay Kumar, the relief commissioner at the Uttar Pradesh state disaster management authority, the high casualty number is the result of people becoming trapped under falling debris. "Many houses collapsed due to high intensity winds, or the trees fell over onto the houses," said Kumar.

A man covers his face as he cycles during a dust storm in New Delhi, May 2.

According to CNN affiliate CNN News 18, the Uttar Pradesh state government has sounded

an alert for the next 48 hours

in anticipation of an increase in the numbers killed or injured in the storm.

The Prime Minister's office said in a statement on Twitter that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was saddened by the loss of lives from the storm.

"(I) have asked officials to coordinate with the respective state governments and work towards assisting those who have been affected," Modi said in the statement.

CNN Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri said India "is in the beginning stages of the onset of its annual summer monsoons."

"Afternoon storms and periods of torrential rainfall have been more and more prevalent in this region over the past several weeks," he added. "These afternoon storms were likely the culprit, bringing powerful winds to the impacted areas and setting the dust and sand in motion."

Javaheri noted the region has had multiple years of below average rains during the summer monsoons, increasing the chance of dust and sand being swept up by strong winds.

Swati Gupta reported from New Delhi, Ben Westcott reported and wrote from Hong Kong. CNN's Huizhong Wu contributed reporting.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/2KyNeoI

0 notes

ladystylestores · 5 years ago

Text

The Indian revolutionary who fought to overthrow British rule while living in Japan

The mastermind of the attack was Rash Behari Bose, a 26-year-old Bengali revolutionary who initially posed as a British loyalist while secretly working to overthrow colonial rule.

The attack failed, but it gave Bose the opportunity to show the hundreds of people in attendance — and the world — that some Indians were prepared to expel the British by force.

After the failed assassination attempt, Bose’s five comrades were captured and took the stand in the Delhi Conspiracy trial, with one imprisoned for life and four others executed.

Today, the names of prominent Indian freedom fighters such as Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru have found their place in world history, but few have heard of Rash Behari Bose.

Yet in Japan his story has become something of a legend.

Foundings of rebellion

Bose was born in a village in northeastern Bengal in 1886 and grew up amid the severe famines that struck India during British rule.

At the time, the average life expectancy for ordinary Indians was about 25 years compared to 44 in the United Kingdom.

The disparities nurtured a nationalist movement which led to the formation of the Indian National Congress, a party for Indians interested in reform and greater political autonomy.

After leaving school, he made unsuccessful attempts to join the Indian Army before landing a clerk’s job with the Forest Research Institute at Dehradun, in the northern state of Uttarakhand.

Bose had wanted a role that would allow him to give the impression of being a loyal British subject while he worked on dismantling British rule from the inside, according to Eston and Kawabe.

With the Forest Research Institute he was able to travel around India and used the opportunity to secretly forge anti-colonial revolutionary networks, they wrote.

For several years, India’s colonial rulers didn’t suspect a thing.

Bengali fury

Bose was still in his teens in 1905 when the British partitioned Bengal into two new provinces, supposedly for administrative reasons, though it appeared to be split along religious lines.

Like other Bengali Hindu nationalists, Bose was incensed.

He managed to stay under the radar until his links to the independence movement were revealed in 1913 by a police raid on a comrade, they wrote.

Investigators seized a briefcase he’d left at the property — his cover was blown.

The Lahore plot

Bose was on the run when he organized one of his most audacious plans.

But as spies infiltrated the movement, the British started disarming Indian soldiers, wrote Eston and Kawabe.

With the authorities on his heels and a bounty on his head, Bose decided he was no longer safe in India.

Disguising himself as a relative of the poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, Bose set sail for Japan from the Port of Kolkata on May 12, 1915.

He never went back.

Looking to Japan

As a British ally, Japan may seem like an odd safe haven for a Bengali freedom fighter fleeing British retribution.

But Japan had a long history of pro-Indian sentiment, dating back to India’s exportation of Buddhism to Japan via the Korean peninsula in the 6th century.

Centuries later, many freedom fighters were starting to look east.

The unexpected rise of an Asian nation gave freedom fighters like Bose hope. They thought Japan, with the rest of Asia, would be able to challenge Western hegemony.

Western powers such as Britain, France and Portugal had gained control of vast swathes of territory across Asia and Africa while building up their empires as early as the 15th century.

Even though Japan was a British ally between 1902 to 1923, it had kept its doors open to revolutionaries who wanted to end British rule in India.

Dodging British authorities

In Japan, Bose laid low.

The British embassy had hired a private Japanese detective agency to track him down, according to Eston and Kawabe.

Sun was in exile in Tokyo after a failed armed uprising against the Qing government and wanted to rouse support from Japan for an armed revolution in China.

Toyama knew just the place to shelter Bose, Eston and Kawabe said.

The “Nakamuraya Salon,” as it was known among Tokyo locals and intelligentsia, was a bakery and cafe located in the bustling Shinjuku district.

In 1918, to protect him from capture, Toyama encouraged Bose to marry Soma’s eldest daughter Toshiko.

The couple had two children before disaster struck.

The dream of a new world order

Toshiko died from pneumonia in 1925. She was 27 years old.

Bose threw himself into the independence movement to overcome his grief.

He published widely on India’s past, promoted ties between India and Japan, and seized every chance to advocate for a Pan-Asian union to strengthen the region.

Bose was becoming bolder with his public profile and was regularly featured in Japanese newspapers.

All the while, the British kept an eye on him.

Fearful of his influence on a younger generation of Indians, the colonial British government made it difficult for Indian students to travel to Japan in the 1930s, according to McQuade.

They had good reason to be suspicious.

‘India’s cry’

In 1931, Bose organized the first Indian Independence League in Japan, which aimed to attain the “independence of India by all possible means,” according to a declassified CIA document.

“The league became bigger, and Bose became leader of the movement throughout East Asia,” Lingam told the Japan Times in 2007.

Two years later, Bose received funding to publish a journal called “The New Asia,” which was distributed in English and Japanese.

For Bose, Britain was the ultimate enemy — and a US-Japan conflict would only play in the country’s favor.

The strained relations removed any incentive for the Japanese government to limit Bose’s political activities, according to McQuade.

By then, there was no way Japan was handing him over.

Trouble on the horizon

Japan was hit especially hard by the Great Depression of the 1930s as agricultural and textile prices fell.

Regardless of how others viewed him, Bose was convinced the Japanese military could be used to liberate India. He kept up his efforts to mobilize supporters in Japan and across southeast Asia.

It was Bose’s most high-profile role and one that seemed destined to ensure his name entered Indian folklore.

But it was not to be.

Today, another man named Bose is much more closely associated with the INA than Rash Behari.

As Chandra Bose became a popular figure in Japan, Behari Bose’s health and presence at the forefront of the Indian independence movement started to fade.

Behari Bose died in 1945 just before India gained independence from British rule in 1947 — a victory he’d worked his whole life to achieve.

Behari Bose laid the foundations of the Indian Independence League and the Indian National Army, according to Eston and Kawabe.

Right until the end, he stood by his conviction to change the status quo. And to this day, he remains one of India’s unsung freedom fighters.

CNN’s Yoko Wakatsuki contributed to this report from Tokyo. Edited by Hilary Whiteman and Jenni Marsh.

Source link

قالب وردپرس

from World Wide News https://ift.tt/2SLH62b

#World Wide News

0 notes

postolo · 7 years ago

Text

2017 SCC Vol. 9 November 14, 2017 Part 4

Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 — Ss. 34 and 37: In light of disagreement at the Bench, issue that award passed and filed in Supreme Court pursuant to the court’s directions, if can be made rule of the court, referred to larger Bench. [State of Jharkhand v. Hindustan Construction Co. Ltd., (2017) 9 SCC 637]

Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 — Ss. 37, 34 and 16 — Plea of no live claim: Plea regarding arbitrability of disputes cannot be raised for the first time at the appellate stage in appeal under S. 37. [Chittaranjan Maity v. Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 611]

Civil Procedure Code, 1908 — Or. 6 R. 2 — Lack of material pleadings, where a suit for declaration of title over the suit property and permanent injunction was filed without material pleadings — Effect of: A suit was filed by the plaintiff, described himself as “Mahant” and “Manager” of the Temple and inter alia seeking declaration regarding ownership of suit property (Temple and land). It was held that the plaint completely lacked material pleadings and particulars for claiming a declaration of title over the suit property and permanent injunction, namely, (i) as to how and on what basis, the plaintiff claimed his ownership over the famous heritage Temple and the land surrounding the Temple; (ii) as to whether the plaintiff claimed the right of ownership through his forefathers and, if so, who were they and whether they constructed the Temple with their own resources and when; (iii) whether the plaintiff’s forefathers were allotted the land in question pursuant to any grant or patta or lease or licence or any kind of written permission for constructing the Temple on such land by the State and, if so, its details; (iv) whether the plaintiff’s forefathers ensured compliances of such grant, etc. if grant was made and whether the construction of the Temple was for the family as a private temple or for the benefit of the public at large; (v) how and in what manner, plaintiff claimed to be or/and is related to the forefathers; (vi) the basis on which the plaintiff claimed the post of “Mahant/Pujari” or “Manager”; (vii) whether the plaintiff as “owner” or “Mahant” or “Manager” ever asserted his right of ownership, Mahantship or Managership against the public at large without there being any objection from anyone from public at large. Further, no documentary evidence was adduced by the plaintiff to establish his claim. In view thereof, the suit filed by the plaintiff held to be misconceived and an abuse of the process of law. [State of Uttarakhand v. Mandir Sri Laxman Sidh Maharaj, (2017) 9 SCC 579]

Contempt of Court — Civil Contempt — General principles — Purging of contempt/Opportunity to comply: As matter no longer being whether alleged contemnor had disobeyed court orders, but rather if report submitted in compliance with court orders concerned was correct or not, it is no longer an issue of contempt, but of merits of the report concerned. The same must be challenged in appropriate proceedings. [Viswajeet Khanna v. Sukhwinder Singh, (2017) 9 SCC 608]

Environment Law — General Principles of Environmental Law — Precautionary Principle/Sustainable Development/Inter-Generational Equity Principle — Instances re Areas/Industries — Mining policy: Court cannot interfere with mining policy or lay down limits on extent of mining activity that should be permitted by the State Government or Central Government. Therefore, prayers on basis of principles of intergenerational equity, not tenable. But considering that National Mineral Policy, 2008 is only in pen and paper and also obsolete (that is, 10 years old), Central Government directed to to revisit said policy and announce a fresh, more effective, meaningful and implementable policy. [Common Cause v. Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 499]

Family and Personal Laws — Hindu Law — Joint Family Property/HUF Property vis-à-vis Self-acquired Property/Individual Income — Presumption/Burden of proof — Presumption of jointness of properties: There lies a legal presumption that every Hindu family is joint in food, worship and estate and in the absence of any proof of division, such legal presumption continues to operate in the family. The burden, therefore, lies upon the member who after admitting the existence of jointness in the family properties asserts his claim that some properties out of entire lot of ancestral properties are his self-acquired property. [Adiveppa v. Bhimappa, (2017) 9 SCC 586]

Infrastructure Laws — Energy and Power — Electricity — Tariff — Concession/Exemption/Incentive/Rebate/Subsidy: Legality of non-extension of incentive by way of freezing of power tariff given under Revised Rules Regarding Grant of Incentive to Industrial Units in H.P., 1991, to peak load exemption charge (PLEC) imposed owing to shortage of power by State, upheld. [State of H.P. v. Gujarat Ambuja Cements Ltd., (2017) 9 SCC 601]

Penal Code, 1860 — Ss. 302/34 — Common intention — Existence of — How determined: Common intention is a state of mind. It is not possible to read a person’s mind. There can hardly be direct evidence of common intention. Existence or non-existence of common intention amongst accused has to be deciphered cumulatively from their conduct and behaviour in facts and circumstances of each case. Events prior to occurrence as also after, and during occurrence, are all relevant to deduce if there existed any common intention. There can be no straitjacket formula. Absence of any overt act of assault, exhortation or possession of weapon, cannot be singularly determinative of absence of common intention. [Rajkishore Purohit v. State of M.P., (2017) 9 SCC 483]

Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act, 1976 (SAFEMA) — S. 7 r/w Ss. 3(1)(b) and (c) — Tenancy of property: There is non-automatic termination of, even when such property is an “illegally acquired property” where lessor is a person to whom SAFEMA applies and is thereby liable to forfeiture. The rights of a bona fide tenant in a property will not stand automatically terminated by forfeiture of such property and vesting thereof in the Central Government. [Domnic Alex Fernandes v. Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 489]

Special Marriage Act, 1954 — Ss. 27 and39 — Divorce on ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage — Relief under Art. 142 of the Constitution: In this case trial court found that appellant failed to prove cruelty of respondent and scrutinising evidence of appellant, concluded that appellant did not make out a case for divorce and dismissed application for divorce. High Court, in appeal, taking note that appellant and respondent are judicial officers, made an attempt for conciliation between parties. Respondent did not appear before trial court after filing of written statement, did not personally appear before High Court. It was held that in spite of service of notice, respondent did not show any interest to appear in Supreme Court also, conduct of respondent by itself indicating she is not interested in living with appellant. Refusal to participate in proceeding for divorce and forcing appellant to stay in a dead marriage would itself constitute mental cruelty. There is no likelihood of appellant and respondent living together and for all practical purposes there is an irretrievable breakdown of marriage. Supreme Court, in a series of judgments, has exercised its inherent powers under Art. 142 of Constitution for dissolution of a marriage where Court finds that marriage is totally unworkable, emotionally dead, beyond salvage and has broken down irretrievably, even if facts of case do not provide a ground in law on which divorce could be granted. As appellant and respondent have been living separately for more than 17 years and it will not be possible for parties to live together and there is no purpose in compelling parties to live together in matrimony and 24 years old daughter’s custody is also not in issue. In peculiar facts of this case and in order to do complete justice between parties, in exercise of power under Art. 142 appeal allowed and application for divorce filed by appellant under S. 27 of Special Marriage Act allowed. [Sukhendu Das v. Rita Mukherjee, (2017) 9 SCC 632]

Specific Relief Act, 1963 — S. 34: Suit for declaration of legal character of parties in regard to their alleged marriage can be filed under S. 34 by plaintiff and on his death can be continued by his LR at behest of plaintiff. In this case plaintiff sought declaration that defendant was not his legally married wife and that she had no right to claim him as her husband as his alleged marriage with defendant was not legal and valid, and thus claimed a permanent injunction restraining defendant from claiming plaintiff as her husband and temporary injunction. The suit was not based on any ground specified under S. 11 or S. 12 of Hindu Marriage Act or under Special Marriage Act, 1954. After death of plaintiff, his mother applied under Or. 22 R. 3 CPC to be added as LR of plaintiff. It was held that suit was in substance one filed under S. 34, hence maintainable at behest of deceased plaintiff. Suit having not been filed under Hindu Marriage Act or Special Marriage Act, civil suit under S. 34 not barred by Ss. 7 and 8 of Family Court Act. High Court in revision erred in setting aside order allowing application for substitution of LR on ground that after death of plaintiff, no right to sue survived in favour of plaintiff’s mother. [Samar Kumar Roy v. Jharna Bera, (2017) 9 SCC 591]

Specific Relief Act, 1963 — S. 38(3) — Relief of permanent injunction to restrain interference with possession — Grant of: In this case suit for permanent injunction filed to restrain defendant Nagar Palika (i.e. appellant herein) from dispossessing plaintiff (i.e. respondent herein) from suit land. Where plaintiff proved with the aid of evidence that he was holding a patta of suit land (issued by appellant in favour of his grandfather) and was in possession of that land, it was held that he established all the three necessary ingredients for grant of relief of permanent injunction i.e. (i) he had a prima facie case, (ii) balance of convenience lay in his favour, and (iii) unless the prayer was granted, he would suffer irreparable loss and injury. Hence, was rightly granted permanent injunction against appellant-defendant in relation to suit land by appellate courts below. [Nagar Palika, Raisinghnagar v. Rameshwar Lal, (2017) 9 SCC 618]

Specific Relief Act, 1963 — Ss. 10 and 20 — Specific performance of agreement (dt. 18-1-1983) to sell immovable property in question — Existence of alleged prior sale agreement (dt. 4-1-1983) as to same property executed by vendors (i.e. Defendants 1 to 5) in favour of another person i.e. Defendant 6 — Effect of: In this case vendors clearly admitted execution of agreement dt. 18-1-1983 in favour of plaintiff. They also admitted part performance of that agreement as they accepted advance money (Rs 1000) from plaintiff in pursuance thereof. On such material facts, it was held that if vendors had already entered into a sale agreement in respect of property in question with Defendant 6, then there was no occasion for them to have entered into another sale agreement with respect to same property in favour of plaintiff. In such circumstances, they should have simply expressed their inability to sell suit property to plaintiff telling him about their prior agreement with Defendant 6, but, they did not do so. Conduct of vendors showing that they somehow wanted to avoid execution of plaintiff’s agreement and wanted to sell suit property to Defendant 6. This they could achieve only by creating an agreement which was prior to that of plaintiff’s agreement. Thus, the two courts below (i.e. trial court and Division Bench of High Court) rightly concluded that agreement dt. 4-1-1983 between vendors and Defendant 6 was a bogus agreement and was created to scuttle the execution of plaintiff’s agreement dt. 18-1-1983. [Nadiminti Suryanarayan Murthy v. Kothurthi Krishna Bhaskara Rao, (2017) 9 SCC 622]

The post 2017 SCC Vol. 9 November 14, 2017 Part 4 appeared first on SCC Blog.

2017 SCC Vol. 9 November 14, 2017 Part 4 published first on http://ift.tt/2y5EnHa

0 notes