'At least six journalists have been booked by Himachal Pradesh police for comments and ground reports on problems being faced by migrant labourers, businesses and citizens during the COVID-19 lockdown. According to a report on Newslaundry, the reasons behind these cases filed against the journalists ranged from their reporting on hunger among migrant workers, lack of proper food distribution, to their social media activity which involved sharing reports of other newspapers, to criticising the district administration for laxity in areas such as quarantining inter-state travellers...'
'Adding to the woes of Dr Kafeel Khan – who has been lodged in Mathura jail since January – the National Security Act (NSA) charges that were slapped against him were extended by a period of three months on Tuesday, 12 May. NSA charges were slapped against Khan in February for three months, which were scheduled to get over on Tuesday evening, his brother Adil Khan told The Quint. The Mathura jail has a capacity of 500 prisoners but has 1,750 prisoners lodged in it, even as the country observes a coronavirus induced-lockdown...'
'The editor of a Gujarati news portal was charged with sedition and questioned by the police after he published a report that suggested the chief minister could be changed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party due to rising number of coronavirus cases in the state...'
'More than 10,000 Muslim migrant workers from Bihar and West Bengal residing at Painters’ Colony in Jaipur’s Nahri ka Naka area, who have only been given dry ration packets since the nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 25, took to the streets on Sunday asking to be sent back home. They claimed that only around 400 packets, each containing a total of seven kilograms of flour, pulses, rice and salt, was distributed among 10,000 people last month. This, too, only came after volunteers of the CPI(ML), CPM and CPI in the area intervened.
'The chemical factory that leaked gas into a coastal Indian city on Thursday morning, killing at least 12 people and putting hundreds in hospital, was operating illegally until at least the middle of 2019, documents show. In an affidavit [pdf] filed by LG Polymers in May 2019, as part of its application to expand the plastic plant’s operations, the South Korean multinational admitted it was operating its polystyrene plant without the mandatory environmental clearance from the Indian government...'
'As many as 103 people, including inmates and staffers, at Arthur Road Central Jail tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. The prison, known for having housed underworld figures and terror convicts, currently houses around 2,800 inmates despite having a capacity of 800. A team of doctors from the JJ Hospital had on Tuesday collected samples from around 200 people at the prison, after the virus was observed to have reached one of the barracks at the jail. Test reports came in on Thursday evening...'
'In most developing countries, including India, the quality of data on the cause of death is very poor. This is because most people die in rural areas and at home, a medically certified death in a hospital is rare, and medical certificates more often than not are filled incorrectly. Dr Prabhat Jha, founding director of the Centre for Global Health Research in Toronto, is one of the world’s leading experts on mortality in India. He is a professor of disease control and an expert advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well as various governments...'
'The Madhya Pradesh police has booked five persons, including three minors, for posting a Facebook comment on Union agriculture and farmers welfare minister Narendra Singh Tomar mocking the incorrect way in which he was wearing a face mask. All the accused – Ajay Pratap Singh Sikarwar, Aman Singh, and minors AB, XX and YY* – are residents of Jaura village in Morena, which the Union minister represents in the Lok Sabha...'
'The world has never seen anything quite like Aarogya Setu. Two months ago, India’s app for coronavirus contact tracing didn’t exist; now it has nearly 100 million users. Prime Minister Narendra Modi boosted it on release by urging every one of the country’s 1.3 billion people to download it, and the result was that within two weeks of launch it became the fastest app ever to reach 50 million downloads... But although the app’s growth is unprecedented, it is extraordinary in an even more important way: if you don’t install it, you might lose your job, get fined, or go to jail.
'It is time to retire the trite stories about clear skies and clean rivers because of the economic lockdown triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. As environment ministers and state governments make it easier for businesses to restart, the toxic gas leak at LG Polymers’ polystyrene plant in Vizag — killing 11 people and exposing 1,100 to the styrene gas — has reminded the world of the folly of viewing environmental due diligence as an impediment to economic activity.
