Union Home Minister Amit Shah today took to Twitter to inform that all the CAPF (Central Armed Police Force) canteens across India will sell only made in India products going forward as a move to make India self-sufficient.
इसी दिशा में आज गृह मंत्रालय ने यह निर्णय लिया है कि सभी केंद्रीय सशस्त्र पुलिस बलों (CAPF) की कैंटीनों पर अब सिर्फ स्वदेशी उत्पादों की ही बिक्री होगी। 01 जून 2020 से देशभर की सभी CAPF कैंटीनों पर यह लागू होगा। इससे लगभग 10 लाख CAPF कर्मियों के 50 लाख परिजन स्वदेशी उपयोग करेंगे।
He said that from 1st June 2020 onward, this rule will come into force. The CAPF canteens will not sell foreign made products henceforth. “This way, 50 lakh family members of over 10 lakh CAPF personnel will use made in India products,” he said. He further urged Indians to use more and more made in India products going forward. “If every Indian vows to use only made in India products, within five years Indian economy can become self-reliant,” he said.
Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan
On 12th May 2020, Prime Minister Modi in his address to nation gave a call for using made in India products and stressed on self-reliant economy. He urged people to consume more and more made in India products so as to achieve this goal.
As India continues to fight against the grave coronavirus crisis, new data reveals that India has slowed down the spread of the pandemic. The latest data indicate that India has been effective at limiting the spread of the virus, however, the continuing deaths and slow recovery rate among the coronavirus patients could stretch country’s battle against the Chinese pandemic.
Professor Shamika Ravi, the senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former member of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council, has been analysing the pandemic trends in India and sharing the same with the public through social media. On Wednesday, she shared several graphical representations of statistical data depicting a welcome turn in the coronavirus growth rate in India.
According to Shamika Ravi, the confirmed active cases in the country are growing at a rate of 4.5%, resulting in the current doubling rate slowing down to 16 days. The doubling rate of infections indicates the number of days it takes for the cases to double in number. Thus, the longer it takes, the better it is.
The active cases in the country is 47,417, according to Johns Hopkins university data.
Image Source: Prof Shamika Ravi
Prof Ravi added that the total cases, which includes the confirmed active cases, recovered and deaths, are growing close to 5.7%, therefore, doubling every 12 days. The total number of total cases in the country is currently at 74,243, which includes 2,412 deaths.
Image Source: Prof Shamika Ravi
Image Source: Prof Shamika Ravi
India’s recovery rate lags behind major countries
The graphs of total confirmed cases, however, when compared with other major countries do not look as good for India as active cases are rising with also increase in deaths. Most of the countries are observing a high recovery rate, but India’s recovery rate lags behind the rest of the countries. The graph clearly indicates that cases are still on the rise in India and we are close to reaching the peak.
On the other hand, the graphs of Italy, Germany, Turkey, Iran, South Korea, Spain and France indicate that they have already well past the peak of the pandemic and are now at a stage of recovery.
Image Source: Prof Shamika Ravi
India has the lowest death rate due to coronavirus
Most importantly, according to the economist Shamika Ravi, the coronavirus death rate per million in May has been lowest in the country with just 1.79 deaths per million people indicating that India has one of the lowest mortality rates due to the coronavirus epidemic.
First world countries such as Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, United Kingdom have suffered a high rate of deaths in their country, as to indicated by the below graph, where at least 400 people have died per million population in France and nearly 770 deaths per million people have occurred in Belgium.
Image Source: Prof Shamika Ravi
Amidst all the data, there is a silver lining to India is that the country continues to perform comparatively better than most countries and the situation does not at the moment look as gloomy as it did some days ago. With strict social distancing and effective management of the health infrastructure, India could soon jump out the coronavirus pandemic.
Last evening PM Modi addressed to the nation. Since his 8 pm addresses have a history of shock elements, the nation was glued to their TVs listening in abject anticipation.
The PM announced a massive economic package of Rs 20 lakh crores, approximately 10% of India’s GDP. However, throughout his speech he emphasised on one word, ‘Aatmanirbhar’. India has to become Aatmanirbhar (self-reliant in Hindi), the PM said. While a considerable number of millennials gawked and googled to find its meaning, it was explained nevertheless. And mainly because the PM’s speech lacked meme material otherwise, the social media lapped up what was available. And Bingo! We have a flood of ‘Aatmanirbhar’ memes and jokes.
Dear Math, Be #Atmanirbhar Find value of x on your own.
As a lot of Indians did some Aatma-chintan over how to become Aatma-nirbhar, the dependency on machines and robots struck us first. Sadly, machines learn faster.
Premier League India picked up the word for spreading some positivity and Aatma-motivational thoughts on social media.
????: Aatmanirbhar ???????: Self-reliant ????????: Sadio Mane has 14 goals and 7 assists this season. He is 'aatmanirbhar'. Be like Mane. pic.twitter.com/jkMN8BEFiQ
Actually meme-verse is so ‘Nirbhar’ on the Marvel Cinematic Universe that no meme fest can go without some Avengers memes. And when it comes to Avengers, no one is as Aatmanirbhar as Iron Man. That is one thing. Another thing is that Captain America, who remains frozen for decades when stuck in the Arctic and ‘Nirbhars’ on a lab-made serum to become what he is, is the last person to lecture Iron Man about anything. Iron Man has been Aatmanirbhar long before Modiji made Aatmanirbhar all cool and hip.
Jokes apart, ‘Aatmanirbhar’ is giving some hilarious breathing space before the Finance Minister’s announcement of the details of the economic package, scheduled for later today, again floods the social media with analyses, criticism and political cat-fights.
Stock markets opened on a high a day after Prime Minister Modi announced Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package to give a boost to the economy as the country opens up after coronavirus lockdown. At 10:15 AM, the Sensex was up by 697 points while nifty was up by 196 points. Except for pharma, all sectoral indices in nifty were in the green. In Individual stocks, ICICI Bank was up by 5.53% at Rs 338.95/share and HDFC Bank was up by 4.1%.
However, customers trading on digital trading platform Zerodha were left agitated after they could not carry out trade on the stock market on Wednesday morning.
Zerodha Kite platform’s server crashed yet another time on Wednesday due to some technical glitch and stock traders could not able to access the platform. Several users took to social media to outrage against repeated issues with trading platform Zerodha after a similar technical slowed down their trading on Wednesday.
Zerodha is the largest brokerage in India with over 20 lakh clients and over 15 per cent of all retail order volumes in India daily, according to its website. Zerodha started in 2010 and quickly gained traction due to its low costs.
Another social media user said that he had already predicted that Zerodha servers would crash on Wednesday following high action in the stock market after PM Modi made an announcement to infuse capital into the market through special economic package.
As predicted last night, Zeroddhaaa server sucks. ALways glitches in the opening. These people should die in a pit hole. #zerodhahttps://t.co/Y2BormhgNR
A stock trader complained about the repeated instances of Zerodha servers failing during market hours and demanded SEBI to conduct an enquiry against Zerodha.
#zerodha Technical glitch can happen ones or twice …but happening every now and then that should be investigated by #sebi. why don’t #zerodha users file complaints to #sebi regarding this? Multiple filling can only get eyes of @SEBI_India.
Zerodha has faced issues on several occasions in the past. However, the Bengaluru-based company claims that it is strengthening its systems. In 2019, a similar outrage had happened after several futures and options traders using Zerodha platform were unable to execute trades due to technical issues.
Zerodha says ‘We were not down’
Trading platform Zerodha later today released a statement that their system was not down today.
We were not down today! In fact, apart from the first 2 minutes, when a tiny fraction of our customers faced a delay in order execution, today was our best performance in terms of order execution speeds thanks to our new data centre commissioned last week.https://t.co/AUCAFybr1u
Zerodha stated that while some customers faced some technical glitch for some time early in the day today, it was one of their best performing day in terms of order execution speed.
Note: The article has been updated with Zerodha’s statement.
A major disaster has been averted after a Chinese rocket narrowly missed dropping down on New York City before burning up in the atmosphere. The debris of the Chinese spacecraft finally ended up in parts of West Africa, reports Fox News.
On Monday a Chinese rocket – Long March 5B, after propelling its cargo into the orbit, fell back into Earth’s atmosphere, narrowly missing the city of New York. The Chinese rocket, which fell into the atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean, was almost over 20 tons.
The Long March 5B rocket’s core stage re-entered the atmosphere at 8.33 am PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) or 1533 GMT, on Monday, according to the US Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron. At that time, the rocket was flying over the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Africa.
#18SPCS has confirmed the reentry of the CZ-5B R/B (#45601, 2020-027C) at 08:33 PDT on 11 May, over the Atlantic Ocean. The #CZ5B launched China’s test crew capsule on 5 May 2020. #spaceflightsafety
Reportedly, the Long March 5B rocket was launched on May 5 from the Wenchang launch centre on Hainan Island in southern China. The rocket had carried a prototype of China’s next-generation crew capsule into orbit on an unpiloted test flight. The launch was carried out to test the capabilities to eventually launch astronauts into space in 2022.
Debris of the Chinese rocket found in Cote d’Ivoire
Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astrophysicist and orbital object tracker, said that the Chinese rocket was the most massive object to make an uncontrolled reentry since the 39-tonne Salyut-7 in 1991.
However, astronomer Jonathan McDowell said that it was unlikely that such large of an object would return to Earth but fragments weighing up to several hundred pounds could have survived re-entering the atmosphere. McDowell said he could “conclude” that the objects that fell on Cote d’Ivoire “are very likely parts of the Chinese rocket stage”.
I conclude that the objects seen in Mahounou, and at least some of the other objects from the Cote d’Ivore region whose photos are being circulated in African media, are very likely parts of the Chinese rocket stage.
According to Spaceflight, the re-entry occurred less than 15 minutes after the rocket body soared almost directly over New York City. The rocket’s core stage measured around 100 feet (30 meters) long and 16 feet (5 meters) wide, with a mass of approximately 20 metric tons.
The dead satellites and old rocket stages regularly re-enter the atmosphere, but re-entering objects with masses of more than a few tons are rare. Normally, such uncontrolled re-entries are difficult to predict and forecasts will be issued by the US military narrowing the window for the rocket’s re-entry to the Earth.
Reportedly, the ground-based radars of the US military were tracking the Long March 5B rocket body in space, which allowed them to monitor to regularly measure the core stage’s decaying orbit.
China has planned to launch at least three more Long March 5B rockets in 2021 and 2022 with modules for the country’s planned space station.
India should take some one-time extraordinary measures to boost the country’s economy and to realize the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make India self-reliant and a global superpower.
We need to provide jobs to poor people and provide credit to farmers and small businesses without straining our internal resources too much. We don’t need to overburden our future generations with huge local debt when there is already a flood of global debt liquidity currently.
We are in the cusp of a new world order. Instead of defending an old order that is collapsing, we should focus on making the new world order just. We should reclaim our rightful place in the new world as an engine of future global growth, manufacturing and technological innovation.
We must use this once in a lifetime opportunity of excessive global liquidity sparked by a deluge in dollar supply amid excessive money printing by the US Fed and other central banks. We can take the following short term, one-time emergency measures to increase money supply in the domestic economy:
1) We have vast dollar reserves and we need to use it now more than ever. The price of crude oil has fallen 70% and WTI crude is unlikely to sustain above $30 for long. The best time to use our dollar reserves is now and we should pump the money into the local economy.
2) The Reserve Bank of India can stop buying dollars. The RBI does not need to defend the INR/USD exchange rate anymore in these extraordinary times. The US Fed’s pledge to provide unlimited stimulus will lead to humongous oversupply of dollar bonds and lack of appetite from big borrowers like China, Middle East and Asia will lead to a surge in US treasury yields and consequent weakening of the dollar over the next two years.
3) India should ease restrictions on external commercial borrowings (ECB) allowing all companies to freely borrow from the international markets if they can get it. At least RBI should relax ECB norms regarding end use, maximum pricing, tenor, etc. for loan and bond issuances. Anyways due diligence and risk management is the job of the international lender, not RBIs.
4) India can do a sovereign dollar bond issue to fund domestic infrastructure building. This can boost economy, create jobs and produce a virtuous consumption cycle.
5) India is going to be a superpower in the new emerging world order. India must negotiate a new, just Bretton Woods deal to reset all reserve and non-reserve currencies according to a nation’s size, demographics and future potential. The revaluation of currencies can be market driven and in proportion to the interest rate spread of the respective currencies.
6) India needs to stop worrying about ratings downgrades. If ratings agencies unfairly penalize India for the COVID lockdown to the exclusion of other developed nations, we should refuse to play ball. Ratings agencies must acknowledge that India’s fiscal position is better than some of the developed nations and it also has great potential to be world’s growth engine.
7) If the Indian economy gets into severe strain due to the lockdown, India can demand recasting and restructuring of some of its dollar debt obligations. Under the leadership of Prime minister Modi India today has greater diplomatic leverage with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. As a precedent, Argentina has done this before and it is an accepted tool in international negotiations.
In a shocking incident, a 60-year-old man in Delhi’s Rohini’s area has been arrested for killing his own son. As per reports, the man named Ompal has shot his son dead after a fight in their home.
As per a report in Live Hindustan, the accused man is a property dealer by profession. He lives in Delhi’s Rithala’s area with his wife and five sons. He has given several portions of his house for rent. One of the sons is an insurance agent.
On Monday night, while the family was sitting together, Ompal was allegedly drinking alcohol. His wife Pavitra Devi had objected to his excessive drinking and had asked him to go inside. Angered over being stopped from drinking, Ompal allegedly started shouting at his wife in abusive language.
The second son Balbir had reportedly confronted his father and stopped him from abusing his mother. After this, Ompal had fought with Balbir and had started hitting him.
After a physical confrontation, Ompal had allegedly barged inside the house, came out with a gun and shot Balbir dead.
It is notable here that 33 years earlier, Ompal had reportedly killed his own mother Maya Devi over a similar dispute when she had stopped him from drinking. He had shot her dead. Ompal has served a jail sentence for the murder.
The man is reportedly a known alcoholic and neighbours keep their distance from him due to his behaviour. Whenever anyone objects, he gets angry and abusive. The police have arrested Ompal and also confiscated his gun.
Shocking visuals of Telinipara have gone viral on social media where houses, allegedly belonging to the Hindu community, were set on fire after communal clashes took place in the region falling in West Bengal’s Hooghly district.
Just one video of what is gong on in Telinipara at this moment. Accusations against police for wilfully allowing local gangs to carry out violence and looting. The @MamataOfficial administration is predictably silent pic.twitter.com/sVyeiP9ePk
Locket Chatterjee, BJP MP from Hooghly took to Twitter to inform that while she tried to call the CP of Chandannagar Police, Dr Humayun Kabir, he did not take her calls. She alleged that the West Bengal state administration has been a mute spectator as Telinipara burned.
I tried to call CP of Chandannagar police Dr. Humayun Kabir many times, but he didn’t answer my call. State administration is mute spectator and Telenipara is burning. #SaveBengalpic.twitter.com/rZo9ahTove
She further stated that she was prevented from going to Telinipara amid allegations of widespread communal violence and looting where in police also facilitated perpetrators.
Alarming situation in Telinipara. Widespread communal violence & looting, with allegations of police facilitating perpetrators. Hoogly MP @me_locket has been prevented from going to spot. Rioters determined to drive out local Hindus from area. A delegation has met @jdhankhar1
Clashes erupted in Telinipara in Hooghly district of West Bengal after Muslims in the locality allegedly refused to follow lockdown orders. As reported by Swarajya, a number of Muslims who had returned from Ajmer had tested positive for coronavirus. However, they were not following the lockdown orders. The Hindus of the area got alarmed by this and put up barricades to stop outsiders from entering the area. However, as reported by Swarajya, BJP MP Locket Chatterjee said that the Muslims broke the barricades and insisted on entering the Hindu-majority area. After Hindus objected, the Muslims attacked the Hindus, Chatterjee reportedly said.
Chandannagar Police Commissioner Humayun Kabir, however, has claimed that the communal clashes were triggered after Muslims were allegedly taunted by ‘corona’ jibes. He claimed that following the verbal spat, the Hindus barricaded the public toilets used by the Muslims which led to violence.
On Tuesday, there were fresh cases of violence, the videos of which have now gone viral on social media. It is alleged that the Hindu homes were set on fire and bombs were hurled by Muslim mob. Hooghly MP Locket Chatterjee has alleged that the attacks were preplanned and the police stood as mute spectator. Chatterjee further alleged that lethal weapons were transported in ambulances and women and children were also attacked.
West Bengal govt focuses on ‘fake news’
As Bengal burned, the Home Department of the West Bengal government claimed that Telinipara is peaceful and warned of ‘strict action’ against those who were trying to ‘disturb peace’. As per reports, 56 persons have been arrested and police raids are on to nab the culprits. Section 144 of the CrPC has been imposed to maintain law and order and mobile internet services are suspended.
To revive the economy shattered by the Coronavirus, and also to make the country self-reliant, prime minister Narendra Modi today announced that his govt is bringing an economic revival package. The total amount of money that the govt plans to pump into the economy, including the measures already announced by the Reserve Bank of India and the Finance Minister, is around 20 lakh crore, which will be around 10% of the total GDP of the country, the PM informed.
But the Congress party, which thinks that being an opposition party means it has to oppose every decision taken by the Modi govt, declared that it is not enough. The Madhya Pradesh Congress posted a tweet after the announcement by the PM saying that ‘only’ Rs 20 lakh is not enough.
They claimed that the Coronavirus pandemic has devoured everything, hence, not 10% of the GDP, but the PM should give away at least 50% of the GDP.
While the Madhya Pradesh Congress thinks that 10% of the GDP is not enough to revive the economy, the same party was actually demanding half the amount for the purpose just a month ago. In the second week of April, the Congress party had said that the govt should announce an economic package which should be worth at least 5-6% of the GDP.
Addressing a press conference via video, party spokesperson Anand Sharma had said, “These are extraordinary times and it required extra-ordinary actions. That is why the prime minister should be bold and declare an economic package to help revive various sectors of the economy post lockdown”. After that, he had added, “We expect that the economic package should be at least five-six per cent of India’s GDP”.
The package today announce by Modi is also much more than what former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan had was would be enough to help the poor to come out of the crisis caused by the lockdown. He had said that Rs 65000 crore is required to help the poor. In an interaction with former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, when Gandhi had asked how much money is needed to help the poor, Rajan had answered, “Approximately 65,000 crores. Our GDP is 200 lakh crores, and out of that 65,000 crore is not a huge amount. So, we can do it”. Later on, Rahul Gandhi had repeated the same amount in his messages.
Therefore, what the PM Modi today announced is actually the twice the amount that the Congress party had thought that would be enough to restart the economy, and much more than what Raghuram Rajan had said will be needed to help the poor. But when PM Narendra Modi announced a package worth more than what Congress had demanded, they say it is not enough and now make a new demand that the package should be 50% of the GDP.
A senior official of CRPF has revealed that two terrorists who killed three CRPF jawans last week at a security checkpoint in Handwara who were linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba. The officer stated that one of them was a Pakistani national and the other was Kashmiri.
As per reports, the two-shot dead three CRPF jawans. They were on duty at security checkpoints were reportedly distracted by a movement at the orchard along the road at Handwara’s Wangam. They took away the rifles of the soldiers after cutting the sling before escaping the spot. A 14-year-old kid was also killed in the crossfire.
Five personnel including Colonel Ashutosh Sharma and Major Anuj Sood were martyred in an encounter near Handwara’s Rajbhar forest in an overnight gunbattle. The Ambush in Kupwara district had taken place following the gunbattle. Two Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists were killed including one Pakistani national named Haider.
A senior police officer said, “We are looking at the possibility that the two terrorists who killed the CRPF jawans may have had a role to play in the gunbattle that cost the security forces five lives.”
He further added, “It is not certain what kind of a role these two terrorists may have played. Whether they were in the house when the security forces mounted the operation to secure the family being held hostage or had left by then.”
A top senior official told Hindustan Times, “after 13-hour Handwara gunbattle that the agencies would keep an open mind on the number of terrorists involved in the encounter. We will be led by the incidence that we find.”
