The ICU patient whose eyes were bitten by a rat in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) run civic hospital in Mumbai has now died. The patient was suffering from alcohol-related liver disease and was admitted to hospital in critical condition. On Tuesday, as he was in the ICU, a rat nibbled on his eyes. The BMC officials had claimed that his injuries were superficial.
Reportedly, this is not the first time such an incident has been reported in a BMC-run hospital in Mumbai. In 2017, rats had nibbled on two patients at Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivali.
It is worth mentioning that Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which is struggling to maintain necessary hygiene at the hospitals, has spent over Rs.2 crores annually for maintaining social media handles for PR and image boosting.
A Dalit boy and his Muslim girlfriend were brutally murdered by the girl’s family at Saladahalli village in Devara Hipparagi taluk in Karnataka’s Vijayapura district.
According to the reports, the 19-year-old Basavaraj Madivalapaa Badiger, an autorickshaw driver at Saladahalli village, and his 18-year-old lover Davalbi Bandagisab Tambad, a resident of the neighbouring Khanapur, were allegedly murdered by the father and other family members of the girl.
As per the villagers, the boy and girl were in a relationship for the past six months. The girl’s family members had warned Badiger to stay away from her. But they continued to meet, which had irked the girl’s family. On Tuesday, a member of the girl’s family found the couple together at a field and informed her father.
The father of the girl and other family members rushed to the field and stabbed them after tying them with a rope, the police said.
According to Mallavva, the mother of the deceased Dalit youth Badiger, the girl’s family tied the couple to the tree and trashed them in front of her. After trashing them heavily, the Muslim family killed them with sharp objects and stone. “I begged them to let the couple go, however, they kept on thrashing the couple,” said Mallavva to Asianet.
“Prima facie, it looks like a case of honour killing. But the case has to be investigated further. The accused are absconding, and we are searching for them,” Vijayapura SP Anupam Agarwal said. The police officer said that no arrest has been made yet in connection with the double murder.
Meanwhile, the girl’s family members, including her father, brothers and two other relatives, are absconding. The police have launched a manhunt to nab the accused in the case.
Since the Uttar Pradesh police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad busted a religious country-wide conversion racket this week, more and more victim’s families are coming out to share their plight.
Darsh Saxena is now Rehaan
One Darsh Saxena’s mother in an interview to ANI revealed that her son has been missing since 2018 and suspects he too has been converted.
“His name on Truecaller app comes as Rehaan. Back then, we filed missing report to avoid religious disharmony. We want to know about his well being.”
He was about 17 then. An FIR was lodged at Phase 2 Police Station in 2018. On probe, we found his name on Facebook account as Mohd Rehaan Ansari, the id has been deactivated now. We are looking for him: Abdul Qadir, ACP-1 (Central Noida) pic.twitter.com/bYPkIT8zf9
Sharing further information, Abdul Qadir, ACP-1 Central Noida informed, “He was about 17 then. An FIR was lodged at Phase 2 Police Station in 2018. On probe, we found his name on Facebook account as Mohd Rehaan Ansari, the ID has been deactivated now. We are looking for him.”
Manu Yadav is now ‘missing’
As per a Times Now report, Manu Yadav was brought back to his house when his father got the information that he was converted by Mufti Qazi Jehangir Alam Qasmi and Mohammad Umar Gautam. However, Rajiv Yadav during an interaction informed that his son used to cry seeking permission to meet his friends.
#Exclusive | #UttarPradesh alleged conversion racket: #Umar (earlier, Gautam) can be heard in a video saying 1000 conversions have completed. Family members of a victim claim they received threat calls from #Pakistan.
Yadav revealed that he once received a threat call on his son’s mobile number with a caller from Pakistan warning him to allow his son to leave the house. After receiving these threat calls and incessant pressure from Manu Yadav, Rajiv allowed his son to leave.
While Manu broke all ties with his father and missing since then, he called his mother recently to inform her that he will be sent abroad in few days. Manu has allegedly been promised help from the people who converted him to set up a business and also assured to get him married in a few years to a Muslim woman.
Reportedly, more than 20 such families have recorded their statements with UP ATS saying their children were converted by the two accused.
Rajeshwari converted to Razia after marriage
Rajeshwari’s family broke all ties with her when her husband Shyam Pratap Singh converted to Dr Umar Gautam (prime accused) after their marriage. Rajeshwari too was unhappy with the fact and her father wanted Umar Gautam to revert to his original religion.
However, even after four years of convincing Umar Gautam refused to budge and rather continued to brainwash Rajeshwari into accepting Islam. Finally, Rajeshwari at the loss of solutions converted to Razia.
Priyanka converted to Fatima
Wiping her tears, Priyanka Sen’s mother said she lost her husband in 2013 which forced her daughter to take up a job. Priyanka, a resident of Lucknow, soon said that she got better job prospects in Mumbai.
She spoke with her mother on phone at times but did not inform her about her conversion or whereabouts. After seven years Priyanka returned home to demand her share of the property with her two children under Sharia. That is when she informed her mother that she is now Fatima and not Priyanka.
Priyanka’s husband’s family assaulted Priyanka’s family and even registered a case against them. Priyanka’s family claims they have been cheated and that they cannot accept her now. Priyanka alias Fatima’s whereabouts are currently not known.
Aditya converted to Abudalla
OpIndia had earlier reported how one Aditya (now Abdulla) from Kanpur, in the ATS investigation, revealed that he was talked into accepting Islam by a trainer who had visited his school for deaf a year ago.
Abdulla revealed that he used to receive religious Islamic videos on Instagram to motivate him to convert.
In hours-long investigations led by an ATS and two state teams assisted by a sign language expert, Abdulla revealed that he finally decided to convert to Islam when he was promised a job and marriage. He also received a conversion certificate.
As more and more revelations by the kin of the victims emerge, few aspects such as promising job and marriage to convert and the involvement of a foreign hand remain constant.
Meanwhile, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind has extended support to the two main accused in mass conversion racket. Maulana Mahmood Madani announced that Jamiat will defend Umar Gautam in the court of law.
Ever since India started vaccinating its elderly population from 1st March 2021 and all above 45 years of age from 1st April, Tripura has been one of the highest percentages vaccinated State in the Country. Recently, Tripura CM Biplab Kumar Deb expressed that Tripura wants to be India’s first State to achieve 100% vaccination for first dose.
On June 21 and 22, a special vaccination drive was carried out in Tripura for age group 18 to 44 years, with a target to vaccinate at least half the eligible population by end of this month.
With India reporting world’s highest single-day Vaccination on 21st June, Tripura reported 1,54,209 COVID vaccination doses on 21st June and 1,85,559 doses on 22nd June 2021. A total of 3,39,768 vaccines doses account for more than 12% of Tripura’s projected eligible population of 18 plus age. With more than 14 Lakh doses administered, Tripura is now India’s first state with 100%+ Vaccination in 45 plus age group.
Twitter user Aashish, who goes by the handle @KashmiriRefuge, has been maintaining a thread of tweets with various graphs covering the vaccination.
India Statewise COVID Vaccination (23rd June 2021,0700 hrs)
As per his data, derived with help of COWIN tracker, Tripura has covered 102% of eligible projected population in the vaccination drive. Speaking to OpIndia, Aashish said that because we do not have latest figure of census, the data of population is projected. Hence, the coverage of population in vaccination drive is over 100%.
Explaining it further, he said, “It is especially difficult to project exactly the 45+ population. For example, Jammu & Kashmir is reporting four 100% vaccinated districts out of 20. However, I’m sure there may be people in those districts which aren’t vaccinated but are receiving it daily. Thats why Projection is the key word.”
Tripura is also projected to be leading the percentage eligible (18+ age) population vaccinated with 1st dose (60%+) and percentage eligible population with both Doses (19%+). Tripura CM also been reporting about fully vaccinated Gram Panchayats in Tripura.
Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb has been regularly sharing updates about various Panchayats which have become 100% vaccinated.
Congratulations Tripura
Five more GPs South Hurua, Laxminagar and Gobindpur in Kalacherra Block, West Tilthai in Jubarajnagar Block and Agnipasa in Panisagar block of North #Tripura is fully vaccinated.
As of now, Tripura has recorded 63,137 total Chinese coronavirus cases of which 58,674 people have recovered. 3,785 are active cases while 655 people have lost their battle to COVID.
India on Monday this week registered the highest one-day vaccination, with more than 90 lakh people administered with a dose of COVID-19 vaccines. Data on the government portal CoWin showed a total of 90,86,514 vaccine shots were given on Monday, that is, on 21 June 2021, the first day of the new vaccine regime.
A day later, on June 22, 54 lakh doses were administered across the country. The CoWin platform said 54,22,891 doses were given on Tuesday. Even though the number fell from the previous day, the 54 lakh vaccination was still much higher compared to daily vaccinations in previous days, which was hovering around 30-35 lakh for several days. But the Congress party decided to attack the Modi government on this issue also.
With the dearth of a credible issue to corner the central government, the compulsive contrarians within the Congress grasped at the straw and started criticising the Modi government over the fall in single-day vaccination from 90 lakhs to 54 lakhs. The party leaders claimed that the record vaccination on Monday was a PR exercise, and it won’t be sustained. However, all the allegations by the Congress party have proved to be baseless as numbers show that India has been able to momentum in the vaccination drive, with numbers on Wednesday surpassing the Tuesday numbers with a huge margin.
Congress leaders denigrate India’s vaccination campaign
Former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, who is perhaps still smarting his incarceration in the INX Media case, took a swipe at the Centre over drop in single-day vaccination figures after record spike.
Chidambaram took to Twitter to lay out what he claimed the “secret” behind the world record vaccination on a single day.
“Hoard on Sunday, vaccinate on Monday, and go back to limping on Tuesday. That is the secret behind the world ‘record’ of vaccinations on a ‘single day’. I am sure the ‘feat’ will find a place in the Guinness book of records!,” P Chidambaram tweeted.
Who knows, there may be a Nobel Prize for Medicine awarded to the Modi government
‘Modi Hai, Mumkin Hai’ must now read ‘Modi Hai, Miracle Hai’
Taking a dig at the Modi government, Chidambaram in his subsequent tweet said that the centre might get a Nobel Prize for medicine. He further said “Modi Hai, Mumkin Hai” must now read “Modi Hai, Miracle Hai”.
Much like his father, Karti Chidamabaram also criticised the vaccination drive, accusing the government of treating it as an “Event Management”.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh also to seemed to have stung so hard by the Centre’s record vaccination on June 21 that he posted a tweet saying that vaccination should not be a single-day fixture. He alleged that June 21 vaccination was a pre-planned, image boosting exercise.
Vaccination cannot be seen like a one-day fixture. Clearly, yesterday was a pre-planned, image-booster. Today we have not sustained that level. We simply have to sustain at least 80 lakhs a day for the next four-five months.
Later, Ramesh tweeted vaccination trends from Madhya Pradesh for three days starting from June 20. “Madhya Pradesh vaccination trend last 3 days: 20th June: 692; 21st June: 16.93 lakhs; 22nd June: 4842. Who are we trying to fool?” Ramesh tweeted.
With his tweet, Ramesh was hitting out at the Shivraj Singh Chauhan government in Madhya Pradesh, accusing them of orchestrating a vaccination campaign to boost the central government’s image on the day it took over the country’s inoculation drive.
However, a report published in Patrika said the drop of vaccination numbers on Tuesday could be attributed to the state government’s announcement that it would not carry out vaccinations that day since it was reserved for child immunisation.
Madhya Pradesh Medical Education Minister Vishwas Sarang rubbished Jairam Ramesh’s insinuations, adding that the CoWin data for Tuesday accounted only for shots given by private hospitals.
Earlier yesterday, even Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala appeared unimpressed with the feat of vaccinating a record 90 lakh people in a single. In a bid to belittle the country’s vaccination drive, Surjewala harked back to the UPA-II rule, claiming that the country had inoculated 17 crore people in a single day with pulse polio vaccination.
However, it is a different thing that Randeep Surjewala was comparing apples with oranges when he equating polio vaccination with COVID-19 vaccination. The made in India vaccines were developed in December 2020 and within six months, more than 28 crore people have been vaccinated with at least one dose of either of the two vaccines developed locally.
By contrast, it took decades for India to completely eradicate polio. The vaccination of polio was introduced in the United States in 1960 and it took another 19 years for its introduction in India.
Furthermore, for years India imported Polio vaccines from abroad since its IPV was not licenced for manufacturing in India till 2006. The polio vaccination was started in 1979 and India was polio-free only in 2012. It took more than 32 years for India to be polio-free.
Resumption of control by the centre reinvigorates the country’s languishing vaccination drive
While Chidambaram, Ramesh and other Congress leaders cite the drop in the number of vaccines administered on Tuesday to accuse the government of orchestrating a record-high vaccination day, it is worth noting that ever since the central government has resumed the nation’s vaccination drive, the number of shots administered on a daily basis have shot up dramatically.
From June 21, the day when the centre took control of the country’s vaccination campaign for people in the age group 18-44, the number of vaccine doses administered has consistently crossed the 50 lakh mark. On Wednesday, i.e June 23, more than 64 lakh doses have been administered, with the number continue to rise as thousands of vaccination centres across the country continue to update the latest data. At the time of writing this article, the CoWin portal showed 64,45,599 doses of vaccines administered on Wednesday.
India has achieved almost 2.10 crore vaccination the last three days, which means average vaccination per day is 70 lakh after the central govt took over the responsibility from the states.
To put things into perspective, India’s vaccination drive was languishing at around 30-32 lakhs per day until 20 June. From the last three days, India has consistently vaccinated more than 54 lakh people on a daily basis, which is approximately 80 per cent higher than the 30-32 lakh levels. Clearly, the taking over of the vaccination process by the central government has revitalised the country’s flagging inoculation drive.
Vaccination drive sees a dramatic spike after the Centre assumes control(Source: CoWin)
Vaccinating more than 50 lakhs people per day is equivalent to inoculating the entire population of New Zealand in a single day. And India has been vaccinating over 54 lakh people for the last three days. New Zealand, on the other hand, has so far administered only 10 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccine so far. And to imagine, there were some “intellectuals” who wished to have New Zealand’s prime minister to head India’s vaccination drive.
Administering over 50 lakh doses every day is no mean feat. But for the Congress leaders, who are perennially consumed with hatred for PM Modi, such an achievement is not worth celebrating. Instead, they are nitpicking over dips in the vaccination drive, which will inevitably happen considering the vast demography of the country along with the scarcity of vaccines.
Congress leaders promoted vaccine hesitancy and raised questions on the efficacy of the indigenously made vaccines
While they diss the central government over the country’s daily vaccination numbers, it is worth noting that Congress-ruled states and Congress leaders have played a significant role in undermining the country’s vaccination drive.
Several senior Congress leaders such as Shashi Tharoor, Jairam Ramesh, Manish Tewari and others actively raised questions on the government’s decision to approve emergency use of indigenously made vaccines. The Congress party has been so brazenly promoting vaccine hesitancy and engendering fear among people about the ingredients used in the vaccine that Congress leader Gaurav Pandhi recently shared misinformation about Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and fuelled apprehensions about the vaccine.
Rahul Gandhi is also responsible for the hiccups in the country’s vaccination drive. Initially, the Gandhi scion had asked the Centre to decentralise the vaccination policy and provide the state governments with a greater say in procuring vaccines. The Centre promptly obliged and allowed the states to issue tenders individually to meet their vaccine requirements. However, shortly later, the states realised that the decision yielded no significant results as they could not procure enough doses and foreign pharma companies refused to deal with individual states. Deflated by the rejection, the states approached the Centre asking them to once again assume the control of the country’s vaccination.
Congress state governments undermined the country’s vaccination drive
The Congress government in different states also worked towards undermining the vaccination drive. Punjab Congress administration was accused of indulging in blatant profiteering by earning Rs 660 per dosage by selling government-procured vaccinations to private clinics in the state under the guise of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
According to reports, the Punjab government supplied at least 20,000 vials of Covaxin to private hospitals throughout the state under the guise of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at a cost of Rs.1,060 per dosage. It was sold from a batch of one lakh vials procured by the govt at the rate of Rs 400 per dose, the rate fixed by Bharat Biotech for state governments. The decision was reverted after the Punjab government faced a huge backlash for profiteering over COVID-19 vaccines.
In May 2021, Rajasthan reported the highest percentage of Covid-19 vaccine wastage. According to a report by Hindi daily Patrika, a total of 11.5 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccine, which amounts to almost 7 per cent, has been wasted in the Congress-ruled state.
Though many districts in Rajasthan had wasted several doses of vaccines, the wastage rate recorded in Rajasthan’s Churu district stood the highest at 39.7 per cent, followed by Hanumangarh, where the waste per cent was recorded to be 24.60 per cent. Bharatpur stood at number three after it reported 17.13 per cent. Kota finished fourth with a 16.71 per cent of waste rate.
Furthermore, Jharkhand topped the list of states with the highest waste of the COVID-19 vaccine. Jharkhand is ruled by the JMM-Congress alliance. According to the data released by the government, Jharkhand wasted a staggering 37.3 per cent of vaccines. Jharkhand was followed by Chhattisgarh, another Congress-ruled state, which recorded vaccine wastage of 30.2 per cent, much higher than the national average of 6.3 per cent.
Sixty-eight years ago in 1953 on this day, Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee – one of the country’s tallest leaders – was mysteriously found dead while he was under detention by the government of Jammu and Kashmir.
Dr Mookerjee, a former minister in undivided Bengal and later a minister in Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet, was a prominent opposition leader and a fierce critic of Nehru and his so-called secular politics. Dr Mookerjee, the founder of Bhartiya Jana Sangh that later evolved into the BJP, was a champion of Hindu nationalism and expectedly became a target for “liberal-secular” leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru.
Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee was the first to demand the full integration of Jammu and Kashmir into Indian territory and had launched the famous “Ek Vidhan, Ek Pradhan, Ek Nishan” movement in the early 1950s. He had led a nationwide campaign against the Nehru government over the special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir.
Dr Mookerjee was arrested illegally by the police on the orders of Sheikh Abdullah’s government on May 11, 1953. A month later, the Hindu leader died during his detention in June 1953 at a prison in Srinagar.
However, many believe that there was a conspiracy behind Mookerjee’s death. The circumstances of his death were mysterious and though many questions were raised the then political powers never launched a detailed, impartial investigation into his death.
On this day in 1953, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, saviour of Bengal, champion of ‘One India, One Parliament, One Flag’, died in custody of Sheikh Abdullah in Srinagar. He was arrested for entering Jammu & Kashmir without a ‘Permit’. He died demanding J&K’s integration with India. ? pic.twitter.com/PoLzoSyaLF
Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee and his followers had set out on a journey to Jammu from Delhi railway station at 6.30 AM on 8 May 1953. Along with Dr Mookerjee, his aides Guru Datt Vaid, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Tek Chand, Balraj Madhok and a few journalists had travelled to Jammu and Kashmir.
Dr Mookerjee had decided to visit Kashmir in 1953 to observe a hunger strike to protest the law that prohibited Indian citizens from settling in Jammu and Kashmir. As per the special status granted to J&K by Nehru, no one, including the President of India, could enter into Kashmir without the permission of Kashmir’s Prime Minister. Essentially, Indians were barred from entering the state of J&K and had to carry a mandatory permit card to be allowed inside the state.
To protest this flawed arrangement, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee had decided to visit Kashmir in 1953 and observe a hunger strike demanding the cancellation of the controversial provision that prohibited Indian citizens from settling in a state within their own country. Dr Mookerjee had intended to launch a civil disobedience movement against the Indian National Congress-led government by entering Jammu and Kashmir without the mandatory permit.
He had launched a protest to oppose the Indian National Congress’s decision to grant Kashmir a special status with its own flag and Prime Minister. “Ek desh mein do Vidhan, do Pradhan aur Do Nishan nahi chalenge,” said Dr Mookerjee that later went on to become a battle cry for many nationalists to oppose Nehru’s policies on Kashmir.
As he entered Jammu and Kashmir, the Sheikh Abdullah-led government arrested him without any warrant on May 11, and thereafter he was jailed in a dilapidated house. Dr Mookerjee was detained in a small cottage converted into a sub-jail almost in the middle of nowhere, near Nishat Bagh, far away from Srinagar city. It was situated on the slope of the mountain range flanking Dal Lake.
It is worth mentioning Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee was suffering from health complications such as dry pleurisy and other coronary troubles for a very long time. Despite these health-related issues, the Jammu and Kashmir government, led by Sheikh Abdullah, treated him like a petty criminal and put him in an old guesthouse situated far away from the city.
Strangely, the Jammu and Kashmir government had placed him in such a place that it was difficult for anybody to reach. To reach the cottage-turned-jail, one had to climb a steep flight of stairs. It is intriguing to know why was Dr Mookerjee, who was suffering from a grave leg injury, was jailed in such a place.
Mookerjee was not given proper medical care during his detention
According to Tathagata Roy, in his book, “Shyama Prasad Mookerjee: His Life and Times”, a biography of the Jana Sangh leader, in early June, Dr Mookerjee’s health suspiciously deteriorated. On June 20, at around 3:30 PM, he was administered streptomycin despite having informed the doctors that he was allergic to the drug. However, the physician Dr Mohammed said that the advice given to him by his doctor was a long time back, and claimed a “lot of new facts” had come to light regarding this drug. Assuring the safety of the drug, Dr Mohammed administered the drug to Dr SP Mookerjee saying he need not worry.
In addition, he was also administered some powder, alleged to be a painkiller. The doctors advised Dr Mookerjee to take the powder twice a day till the pain existed. According to Guru Datt Vaid, Dr Mookerjee requested the superintendent of the jail to inform the news of illness to his relatives. However, no such intimation was sent nor any bulletin issued by the government till after his death.
The next day, only the jail doctor visited him, and the doctors who treated him did not even visit him. The jail doctor administered another one gram of streptomycin, resulting in an increase in temperature and pain throughout the day. On 22 June, Vaid was informed that Dr Mookerjee wanted to see him immediately. Vaid rushed to his room and found that his temperature had gone down to 97° F and his health was deteriorating.
At 5.15 AM, the aides informed the jail superintendent about his deteriorating health. Soon, Dr Ali Mohammed reached the jail at 7.30 AM, who suggested to the superintendent that Dr Mookerjee should be immediately removed to the nursing home. Shockingly, the jail superintendent asked him to get an order from the district magistrate.
Dr Mookerjee’s aides Guru Datt and Tek Chand requested him to get the required permission to take him to the hospital. But Dr Mohammed refused to do so and is said to have remarked, “I understand your anxiety, but you don’t worry. He will be in better hands there.”
At about 11.30 AM, the jail superintendent reached there with a taxi. Dr Mookerjee was soon taken to the gynaecological ward in the state hospital about 10 miles away, not to any nursing home. On 23 June 1953, the police superintendent informed Datt and Chand that Dr Mookerjee was in a bad state. As they hurried to the hospital and reached there at 4 AM, the hospital authorities informed them that Dr Mookerjee had breathed his last at 3.40 AM.
Following his suspicious death, the government did not carry out any post mortem in total disregard for the rule. Maulana Azad, the acting Prime Minister in Nehru’s absence who had travelled to London, did not even allow the body to be brought to Delhi. Instead, it was directly flown to Calcutta.
The shocking and sudden death of Dr SP Mookerjee in police custody raised wide suspicion across the country. Dr Mookerjee’s mother, Jagmaya Devi, who received a condolence letter from Jawahar Lal Nehru, promptly asked him to initiate a detailed probe into the suspicious death of his son. However, Nehru declared that he was satisfied with the opinion of several persons who were privy to the facts and ruled out any mystery behind Mookerjee’s death.
Dr Mookerjee was killed in a conspiracy between Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah govt: Former PM Atal Bihar Vajpayee
Decades after his death, former Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former private secretary to Dr Mookerjee, had alleged that the Jan Sangh founder did not die of health complications but was killed as part of a conspiracy between the then Jawaharlal Nehru-led central government and the Jammu and Kashmir government.
In 2004, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had said that Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee’s death was part of a major conspiracy hatched by Delhi and the Kashmir government. Talking about his association with Dr Mookerjee, Vajpayee had recalled how his efforts and sacrifice had ensured the border state was not separated from the country.
“When Mookerjee decided to violate the permit rule by entering J&K without a permit, we thought the Punjab government would arrest him and prevent him from proceeding further. However, that did not happen,” recalled Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who had accompanied the Jan Sangh leader on his mission.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who started his political career under Dr Mookerjee’s leadership, said they were informed about their leader’s arrest by the Jammu and Kashmir government. It was known to them that the Nehru government had entered into a conspiracy with the Sheikh Abdullah-led government, as per which it was decided that Dr Mookerjee would be allowed to enter Jammu and Kashmir but not be allowed to leave.
Former PM Vajpayee had alleged that then Nehru had entered into the “conspiracy” with Abdullah as it feared that if Mookerjee was not allowed to enter J&K, there would be serious questions raised on the integration of the state with the country. Hence, the Nehru government told the J&K government that Dr Mookerjee should not be allowed to come back, the former prime minister alleged, adding Mookerjee was deliberately arrested only when he entered J&K and not anywhere else.
Nobody knows or maybe will ever know what caused the death of Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. However, a sense of satisfaction exists in the hearts of every Indian today that the sacrifices of Dr SP Mookerjee’s to integrate Jammu and Kashmir into Indian territory has not gone in vain.
The sacrifice of Dr Mookerjee has lived in the hearts of people for decades now and continue to remain so. The dreams that Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee had envisioned for Kashmir was finally fulfilled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 5, 2019, when he withdrew the special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir by scrapping the controversial Article 370.
Since the historic decision, Jammu and Kashmir has been moving in the path of total integration with India, and any Indian can now freely travel and reside in the J&K as Dr SP Mookerjee had envisioned.
The Royal Academy of Arts has apologised to artist Jess de Wahls after arbitrarily removing her work from its gift shop over her alleged “transphobic” statements.
The Royal Academy of Arts had removed the embroidery work of textile artist Jess de Wahls after receiving backlash for comments she had made in a blog in 2019 about gender and sex. Two years back, De Wahls had said that she could not accept people’s “unsubstantiated assertions that they are in fact the opposite sex to when they were born”, sparking a controversy.
Subsequently, the RA had released a statement saying her opinion was in conflict with its own diversity, equality and inclusion principles and decided to remove her work for their stores. De Wahls’s comments led to accusations of transphobia, which the artist had denied.
In an interview recently, De Wahls had said she would consider legal action if she did not receive an apology.
Even as the textile artist considered suing the Royal Academy, they have issued an apology to De Wahls, saying that they had erred in removing her artwork for her alleged transphobic views.
In a statement on Wednesday morning, the Royal Academy said, “There has been a great deal of debate around the RA’s recent communication about no longer stocking the work of Jess de Wahls in the Royal Academy shop. We have thought long and hard since then about this and the wider issues it raises.
“One thing is clear to us now – we should have handled this better. We have apologised to Jess de Wahls for the way we have treated her and do so again publicly now. We had no right to judge her views on our social media. This betrayed our most important core value – the protection of free speech,” the Royal Society of Art said in its apology to Jess de Wahls.
Further, the Royal Academy of Arts said, “There was also a failure of communications internally which resulted in Jess de Wahls first hearing via social media that we would no longer stock her product in the RA shop. We will now reopen discussions with her regarding the restocking of her work.”
The statement added that Royal Academy Art would continue to reflect on this and look at their internal processes to ensure they learn from their mistakes. We want to make sure we navigate this better in future, the statement added.
On June 14, it was reported that a video had emerged showing live bats in Wuhan Institute of Virology, adding to the theory that the SARS-CoV-2 virus may have leaked from the institute, accidentally or otherwise. Before the video had emerged, the allegations of live bats in the lab were categorically denied by the authorities managing the lab. Interestingly the video also disapproved the denial of the World Health Organization investigators who had kept calling the theory of live bats in the lab a “conspiracy”.
..The published data are in this paper. These viruses include those able to bind to ACE2, the human cell-surface receptor for SARS-CoV, and able to infect and cause illness in the humanized mouse SARS model…https://t.co/HFzjtvA50c
Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO team tasked with finding the origin of the virus, had denied the presence of bats in the institute. He had claimed that only virus samples collected from the bats in caves were analysed in the lab, saying the that bats were never brought to the bat and they were released after samples were collected from them. But the video from the Wuhan laboratory had proved his claims wrong.
Now, old tweets of Peter has emerged on Twitter where he had talked about how they were conducting research on the virus and the disease that it causes. It shows that they were well aware of the potential danger of the virus to mankind more than a year before the pandemic hit us, despite that they brought the bats to the laboratory, risking a leak of the virus from the lab or during the transit.
In the tweet thread, Peter wrote, “A very important cave site in Yunnan Province, China – We’ve found a series of SARS-related Coronaviruses in bats from this cave that have every genetic element of the original SARS-CoV outbreak virus.”
He further added that the published data was in a paper. “These viruses include those able to bind to ACE2, the human cell-surface receptor for SARS-CoV, and able to infect and cause illness in the humanized mouse SARS model,” he said.
In our paper: “Risk of spillover…and emergence of a disease similar to SARS is possible.” Proposed “serological surveys of people, to determine if spillover is already occurring”. Here’s the result, evidence of recent human exposure to SARSr-CoVs, China https://t.co/1tbm7wE6SQ
Mentioning the location of the cave, he noted that it was located in a rural part of Yunnan Province that is not far from Kunming. He further asserted if a cave-like that would have been the origin of the 2003 SARS outbreak.
Towards the end, he mentioned the paper in which his team wrote about the Risk of spillover and the emergence of a disease similar to SARS.
What was in the papers shared by Peter?
In the first paper titled “Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus”, the authors talked about the large number of SARS-related coronaviruses that were detected in horseshoe bats since 2005 in different areas of China.
The paper read, “The full-length genomes of 11 newly discovered SARSr-CoV strains, together with our previous findings, reveals that the SARSr-CoVs circulating in this single location are highly diverse in the S gene, ORF3 and ORF8. Importantly, strains with high genetic similarity to SARS-CoV in the hypervariable N-terminal domain (NTD) and receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the S1 gene, the ORF3 and ORF8 region, respectively, were all discovered in this cave.”
After examining the evidence of recombination events among SARSr-CoVs harboured by bats in the single location, the scientists noted that the direct progenitor of SARS-CoV might have originated as a result of a series of recombination within the S gene and around ORF8 followed by the spillover from bats to civets and people either in the region or during movement of infected animals through the wildlife trade.
In the second paper, titled “Serological Evidence of Bat SARS-Related Coronavirus Infection in Humans, China”, the authors discussed how, during the SARS outbreak investigation, they identified epidemiological evidence of a zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV. The paper further said, “These results indicate that some SARSr-CoVs may have high potential to infect human cells, without the necessity for an intermediate host. However, to date, no evidence of direct transmission of SARSr-CoVs from bats to people has been reported.”
Their study reportedly provided the first serological evidence of likely human infection by bat SARSr-CoVs or, potentially, related viruses. They suggested more extensive surveillance to learn about possible infection in the region. “Bat woman” Shi Zhengli was one of the authors of both papers.
On June 23, Lakshmi M Puri, wife of Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, gave a befitting reply to alleged activist and Congress mouthpiece Saket Gokhale for creating a mischievous Twitter thread filled with baseless allegations against her. Lakshmi Puri has served as Assistant Secretary-General at United Nations, Deputy Executive Director at United Nations Women, and Ambassador of India to Hungary and accredited to Bosnia and Herzegovina. She is currently working as a commentator on National and International Affairs.
Gokhale’s allegations against Puri
In the tweets, Gokhale alleged that Puri bought a house worth $2.5 million in Switzerland, for which the couple did not have enough legitimate sources of income. The house was purchased in 2006. Gokhale alleged that it was declared first by Hardeep Singh Puri in 2017 as a member of the union cabinet. Lakshmi Puri took a loan of CHF 1.6 million for the house.
As 20% of the loan amount has to be covered by the borrower, Puri had to show an income of CHF 3,00,000 which, according to Gokhale, was not possible as she was drawing Rs 8.4 lakh with Rs 1.4 lakh grade pay as an IFS officer. He had calculated that the annual income of Lakshmi M Puri would be Rs 10-12 lakh per year. He also calculated that a down payment of CHF 5,40,000 (Rs. 4.3 crores) must have been made, which according to him is not possible with the known incomes of the Puris.
Screenshot of a tweet from Gokhale’s tweet threat against Lakshmi M Puri. Source: Twitter
Lakshmi M Puri gave a befitting reply
Puri took to Twitter to reply to Gokhale’s allegations and asked him to get his facts right. She informed that while posted at UN, she was getting a tax-free salary as per UN scale, not as per IFS scale. Therefore, she was getting over US $200,000 per year, which translates to around Rs 1.5 crore at the current exchange rate. She said, “Get your facts right, Saket Gokhale & there is no ‘mystery’. I was an International Civil Servant from 2002 to Feb ‘18. Drew a tax free UN salary of over US $200,000 annually when I bought the apartment in Geneva.” She further added, “All facts declared to concerned authorities. Prepare to be sued.”
Get your facts right @SaketGokhale & there is no ‘mystery’. I was an International Civil Servant from 2002 to Feb ‘18. Drew a tax free UN salary of over US $200,000 annually when I bought the apartment in Geneva. All facts declared to concerned authorities. Prepare to be sued.
This shows that the annual income of Lakshmi M Puri was significantly higher than Rs10-12 lakh estimated by Saket Gokhale, which explain how she was able to afford the house. It shows there is no ‘mystery’ in the issue as alleged by Saket Gokhale, it only shows that he is ignorant about the remuneration of people employed at the United Nations. Lakshmi Puri also threatened that she will sue Saket Gokhale.
Saket Gokhale spreads further lies in defence
After taken aback by the rebuttal from Puri, Gokhale tried to salvage his position on the issue. He asked if she was earning $200,000 a year, why it was not mentioned in the affidavit submitted by her husband Hardeep Singh Puri during his Rajya Sabha election. However, as always, this allegation by Gokhale was also baseless.
If you claim that you drew a salary of $200,000+ (Rs. 1.5 crores) until February 2018, then why did your husband @HardeepSPuri declare your annual income as Rs. 11,52,730 in his affidavit for 2017?
Saket Gokhale pointed towards the affidavit where the income of Hardeep Singh Puri’s spouse income was mentioned as Rs 11.52 lakh for the financial year 2016-2017. By this, he wanted to prove that Lakshmi M Puri’s true income was not mentioned in the union minister’s affidavit, despite the fact that she was a govt official earning a salary, not a businesswoman who can hide income. Regarding the affidavit, it clearly mentions that it needs the income as reflected in the Income Tax return for that financial year.
As Lakshmi M Puri was not earning her salary in India, her salary was not mentioned in the ITR filed in India. The amount of Rs 11.52 lakh mentioned in the affidavit must be from her other sources of income in India.
Saket Gokhale also questioned why the details of assets owned by Lakshmi Puri are not mentioned in the affidavit of her spouse, which is an absolute lie. The affidavit mentions the details of nine bank accounts held by her in India, Geneva and New York, with a combined deposit of around Rs 3.50 crore. The details were mentioned under the heading “Details of Movable Assets”, which also informed that she has gold worth Rs 20 lakh.
Netizens came in support of Puri
Several netizens supported Lakshmi M Puri and explained how ignorant Gokhale behaved while drawing the allegations. Sourabh Choudhary, National General Secretary BJYM, said, “Please for God sake stop calling yourself a transparency activist and investigator, as you are bringing shame to those who take their job seriously. To correct your facts for a long time, Smt Lakshmi M Puri served in UN where salaries are tax-free and paid in dollars.” He further asked Gokhale to research appropriately before making such baseless allegations.
Please for God sake stop calling yourself a transperancy activist and investigator, as you are bringing shame to those, who really take their job seriously. To correct your facts for long time, Smt @lakshmiunwomen served in UN where salaries are tax free and paid in dollars. https://t.co/4lEmWVlL0R
Kaushik Burman, Strategic Partner at Gogoro, said, “UN pay, cost of living adjustments and allowances are in the public domain. Names of UN senior staff and their tenures is in the public domain. MPs assets liabilities declarations all online. UN salary is not subject to Indian tax at all. It’s a tax-free salary. #factcheck must.”
UN pay, cost of living adjustments and allowances are in the public domain. Names of UN senior staff and their tenures is in the public domain. MPs assets liabilities declarations all online. UN salary is not subject to Indian tax at all. It’s a tax free salary. #factcheck must
This is not the first time Saket has made baseless allegations. In April 2021, he was caught peddling lies to defend the Maharashtra govt’s harassment of Bruck Pharma director over Remdesivir supply. He later complained with Maharashtra Home Minister about how Leader of the Opposition Devendra Fadnavis or the BJP, as private players, could obtain a crucial drug when its sale is allowed only to the state government.
In March 2021, he tried to float the conspiracy theory that the BJP IT cell was behind the letter because why would Parambir Singh refer to himself with ‘Shri’ salutation. As the letter was not signed and Parambir Singh respectfully addressed himself as ‘Shri’, Saket Gokhale declared that the letter was fake. Incidentally, the assertion of Saket Gokhale had come despite Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh had issued a statement confirming Parambir Singh’s letter.
Reportedly, a complaint was lodged with the Narcotics Control Bureau against Saket Gokhale, accusing him of earning drug money through the means of crowdfunding. Also, several people, including left liberals, have accused him of being a ‘fraud’ and had alleged that Gokhale collects money on the pretext of filing RTIs.
Update: Lakshmi M Puri sends legal notice to Saket Gokhale
After asking Saket Gokhale to be prepared to get sued, Lakshmi Puri acted swiftly, and send a legal notice asking him to apologise and remove his tweets. The notice sent by her lawyers says that Gokhale’s tweets are factually incorrect and libellous against their client. It says that the tweets are maliciously motivated, laced with canards and entail deliberate twisting of facts in order to cause reputational damage and irrevocable harm.
As a proud daughter of Maharashtra & a professional all my life, I am appalled by your shameful antics @SaketGokhale.
My lawyers informed me that you have received the legal notice.
The legal notice counters the claims by Saket Gokhale, saying that Lakhsmi Puri was employed by UNCTAD for 7 years from 2002 to 2009 in her individual capacity, she was not deputed by govt of India. At UNCAD, she was paid salary in Swiss Franc, and later she became an ASG at United Nations from 2011 to 2018 where she was paid in US Dollars. It reiterates that her salary was over 200,000 USD.
Refuting the allegations later made by Gokhale that Lakshmi Puri’s annual income of $200,000 is not shown in the election affidavit of her husband Hardeep Singh Puri, the legal notice said that the affidavit needs to mention only the taxable Indian Income. As her salaries in UN are tax-free and they are not taxable in India, the same is not mentioned in her Income Tax Return in India, and that’s why it was not mentioned in in the affidavit.
The Legal notice also accuses Saket Gokhale of making the PAN detail of their client public, which could be misused causing irreparable harm. However, the PAN details are there in the affidavit filed by her husband Hardeep Singh Puri, which is already in public domain as per Indian laws.
The legal notice asks Saket Gokhale to apologise immediately, remove the tweets and give an undertaking that he will not resort to such slanderous behaviour ever in future. If he fails to do so, he will face civil and criminal action and punitive damages for defamation and injury.
The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) had demanded $916 million in compensation from the owners of the giant Ever Given vessel that had got stuck in the Suez Canal earlier this year. The high compensation was sought to cover the revenue loss, reputational damage and cost of salvage operations.
As per reports, the negotiation could not be finalized since March leading to the ship being anchored in a lake between two stretches of the canal since it was dislodged on March 29.
The Ever Given ship’s Japanese owners Shoei Kisen and its insurers had disputed the claim and the ship’s detention under an Egyptian court order with negotiations going on till Saturday.
Demanding 15 more days for a mutual settlement, the Suez Canal Authority have publicly lowered the compensation to $550 million.
Stann Marine Ltd., a London-based law firm for Ever Given’s owners and insurers, said in a statement on Monday, “Following extensive discussions with the Suez Canal Authority’s negotiating committee over the past few weeks, an agreement in principle between the parties has been reached.”
“During the negotiations, we submitted a proposal that we believe satisfies all the requirements of the SCA,” said a statement, informing that the details of the negotiations would remain confidential.
Arrangements will be made to let the ship leave Egypt as soon as the two sides will finalize an agreement.
The SCA’s chairman had earlier informed that Shoei Kisen had offered to pay $150 million. Judicial sources claim that the case was adjourned until July 4 to allow for an “amicable settlement”.
BREAKING NEWS: The #EverGiven is still in the Great Bitter Lake?
The most famous ship of 2021 has been stuck in the #Suez for 85 days, since Mar 23.During that time, 4343 vessels have passed through the Great Bitter Lake @ an avg of 54 a day
The Ever Given, one of the largest cargo carriers of the world, had got stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking up one of the world’s busiest trade routes. An estimates 12 billion USD was lost in international trade due to the blockage.
After finally being freed after almost two weeks with continuous efforts by private salvage companies and the SCA, the giant ship has been held in the Great Bitter Lake, because the canal authorities refused to let it pass without the owners paying compensation for the blockage.
Suez Canal blocked by ‘Ever Given’
A huge container ship named ‘Ever Given’ had run aground in March the Suez Canal after being blown off course by a “gust of wind”, resulting in a huge traffic jam of vessels at either end of the crucial international trade route. The cargo ship, which is three-years-old and is registered in Panama, was on its way to Rotterdam in the Netherlands from China when it got stuck in the Suez Canal.
Weighing 220,000 tonnes and running 400 metres long, the “mega-ship” Ever Given had jammed itself diagonally across a southern section of the canal in high winds early, blocking shipping traffic on the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.
