'SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir—When Indian-administered Kashmir confirmed its first coronavirus case on March 18, Iqbal Saleem, a professor of surgery at Government Medical College in the capital, Srinagar, sensed the days ahead would be challenging. He sent a WhatsApp message to his friend, a surgeon in the United Kingdom, asking about the country’s response to the pandemic. His friend sent back a detailed protocol adopted by hospitals in Kent. For Saleem, just downloading the document was a herculean task.
'A decision by the government of Madhya Pradesh to convert the state capital’s Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre into a COVID19-designated facility has had a devastating effect on one of India’s most vulnerable communities. The BMHRC is a 500-bed super-speciality hospital, which was set up to care exclusively for the first-, second- and third-generation survivors of a chemical disaster that is commonly known as the Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1984.
'On 7 April, Preeti Pandey, the wife of an Indian Administrative Services officer Rajkumar Pandey, released a video that went viral across Madhya Pradesh, and Bhopal in particular. In it, Preeti, looking grim and visibly anxious, methodically explained how her husband, who worked for the National Health Mission, contracted the COVID-19 virus in one of the meetings he had with his colleagues. The cruel irony of Rajkumar’s case is that the government officials had convened the meeting to prepare a strategy to combat the pandemic.
'Aarogya Setu, a Government of India app to track the real-time movements of citizens to determine if they have been in the proximity of COVID-19 patients, vastly expands the surveillance capabilities of the state with few explicit safeguards warned privacy experts and cybersecurity analysts.
'Unable to wait to make their union official, a Kerala couple is in hot water for eloping and violating lockdown rules in Kerala. 21-year-old Rajini* and 23-year-old Ashiq*, who eloped away last Saturday, have been booked by police for leaving their homes for a cause that was not an emergency. In the wee hours of Saturday morning, Rajini left her home in Thamarassery with Ashiq. On finding out about the incident, Rajini’s father filed a complaint with the Thamarassery police station, saying that his daughter had gone missing...'
'Zee News has become the latest organisation to be caught spreading fake news about Tablighi Jamaat. The pro-BJP organisation was forced to delete its tweet containing the fake news after a warning from the Firozabad Police in Uttar Pradesh. In its tweet, now deleted, Zee Uttar Pradesh Uttarakhand had said, “Four Tablighi Jamaati test corona positive in Firozabad, stones pelted at the medical team that came to pick them up.” The Firozabad Police reacted swiftly to expose the lies spread by Zee News...'
'For nearly 600 fishermen from Maharashtra, stranded at sea off Gujarat coast after they were reportedly not allowed to deboard at Nargol, about 400 kilometres from Ahmedabad, home may still be days away. The men, who have been at the sea for months, said when 23 boats carrying fishermen from Maharashtra and Gujarat reached at Nargol around 1.30 am Sunday an announcement by the mamledar or tehsildar said only fishermen from the state could alight on its shores.
'...Officials predicted that if all 171.3 million households participated, the loss of load could be 12,452 MW. The actual total demand drop recorded during the event turned out to be 31,089 MW – more than twice as high! This implies that in order to save the grid and keep voltages and line loads within permissible limits, engineers turned off select transmission lines. This in turn means large areas were without power before and during the event, and so compliance was not totally voluntary.
'Unable to get access to essential items during the national lockdown despite the Centre’s assurances, an early morning drive with his son-in-law proved deadly for 65-year-old Adivasi man in Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar district on Saturday. Tibu Meda, a resident of Gothaniya in Maheshwar tehsil of Khargone district, and his son-in-law were allegedly beaten up by the police for violating lockdown rules. The incident took place in Gujari village in Dhamnod, Dhar district, when Tibu went out to buy essential items, his son-in-law Sanjay claimed.
'After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s video conference with the chief ministers on April 2 to tackle COVID-19 epidemic, the Centre has approved for the release – in advance – of Rs 1,611 crore to Maharashtra under the State Disaster Risk Management Fund (SDRMF) to fight the disease as it has reported the highest number of such cases so far. According to a news report in The Hindu, however, Kerala, which has registered one of the highest number of coronavirus cases across the country, has been allocated only Rs 157 crore – much less than most states...'
