World
Iran, US warships in first tense Mideast encounter in a year
American and Iranian warships had a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf earlier this month, the first such incident in about a year amid wider turmoil in the region over Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday.
Footage released by the Navy showed a ship commanded by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard cut in front of the USCGC Monomoy, causing the Coast Guard vessel to come to an abrupt stop with its engine smoking on April 2.
The Guard also did the same with another Coast Guard vessel, the USCGC Wrangell, said Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet. Such close passes risk the ships colliding at sea.
Also read: Iran atomic sites targeted by diplomacy, sabotage
Iran did not immediately acknowledge the incident in the southern reaches of the Persian Gulf, which resulted in no injuries or damage.
“The U.S. crews issued multiple warnings via bridge-to-bridge radio, five short blasts from the ships’ horns, and while the (Iranian) Harth 55 responded to the bridge-to-bridge radio queries, they continued the unsafe maneuvers,” Rebarich said. “After approximately three hour of the U.S. issuing warning and conducting defensive maneuvers, the (Iranian) vessels maneuvered away from the U.S. ships and opened distance between them.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the incident, which involved the Iranian Harth support ship and three Iranian fast-attack craft. The Coast Guard units operate out of Bahrain as part of Patrol Forces Southwest Asia, its biggest unit overseas.
The interaction marked the first “unsafe and unprofessional” incident involving the Iranians since April 15, 2020, Rebarich said. However, Iran had largely stopped such incidents in 2018 and nearly in the entirety of 2019, she said.
Also read: Attack on Iran ship off Yemen escalates shadow war
In 2017, the Navy recorded 14 instances of what it describes as “unsafe and or unprofessional” interactions with Iranians forces. It recorded 35 in 2016, and 23 in 2015.
The incidents at sea almost always involve the Revolutionary Guard, which reports only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Typically, they involve Iranian speedboats armed with deck-mounted machine guns and rocket launchers test-firing weapons or shadowing American aircraft carriers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil passes.
Some analysts believe the incidents are meant in part to squeeze President Hassan Rouhani’s administration after the 2015 nuclear deal. They include a 2016 incident in which I ranian forces captured and held overnight 10 U.S. sailors who strayed into the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters.
“U.S. naval forces continue to remain vigilant and are trained to act in a professional manner, while our commanding officers retain the inherent right to act in self-defense,” Rebarich said.
The incident comes as Iran negotiates with world powers in Vienna over Tehran and Washington returning to the 2015 nuclear deal, talks due to resume Tuesday. It also follows a series of incidents across the Mideast attributed to a shadow war between Iran and Israel, which includes attacks on regional shipping and sabotage at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility.
India records 320K cases as foreign help arrives
India recorded more than 320,000 new cases of coronavirus infection Tuesday as a grim surge of illness and death weighed on the country and its sinking health system started getting much-needed support from foreign nations.
Tuesday’s 323,144 new infections raised India’s total past 17.6 million, behind only the United States. It ended a five-day streak of recording the largest single-day increases in any country throughout the pandemic, but the decline likely reflects lower weekend testing rather than reduced spread of the virus.
The health ministry also reported another 2,771 deaths in the past 24 hours, with roughly 115 Indians succumbing to the disease every hour. The latest fatalities pushed India’s fatalities to 197,894, behind the U.S., Brazil and Mexico. Experts say even these figures are probably an undercount.
Also read: Virus ‘swallowing’ people in India; crematoriums overwhelmed
Foreign ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi tweeted photos Tuesday of the first shipment of medical aid India received from Britain. It included 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators.
Other nations like the U.S., Germany, Israel, France and Pakistan have also promised medical aid to India. The countries have said they will supply oxygen, diagnostic tests, treatments, ventilators and protective gear to help India at the time of crisis which World Health Organization’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday called “beyond heartbreaking.”
The surge, spurred by insidious new variants of coronavirus, has undermined the Indian government’s premature claims of victory over the pandemic. The country of nearly 1.4 billion people is facing a chronic shortage of space on its intensive care wards. Hospitals are experiencing oxygen shortages and many people are being forced to turn to makeshift facilities for mass burials and cremations as the country’s funeral services have become overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, in a bid to tackle the shortage of beds, Indian authorities are turning to train carriages, which have been converted into isolation wards. India has also started airlifting oxygen tankers to states in need. Special trains with oxygen supplies are also running in the country.
France was sending breathing machines, ICU gear and eight oxygen generators in a shipment expected to be sent later this week. Each generator can equip a hospital of 250 beds for several years, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.
France will also send breathing machines, pumps and containers of liquid medical oxygen aimed at helping up to 10,000 patients per day, according to the French Foreign Ministry. That first oxygen shipment is expected to arrive from Europe to India next week.
Also read: UK to send medical supplies to India
The White House was moving to share raw materials for the production of the AstraZeneca vaccine with India by diverting some U.S. orders to the vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India.
White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients told The Associated Press that the Biden administration was working to satisfy other “key requests” from the Indian government, namely for personal protective equipment, tests, therapeutics and supplies of oxygen and respiratory assistance devices.
Epidemiologists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were also expected to soon travel to India to assist with its virus response.
Also read: Indian court raps poll panel for rising Covid cases
Global rights group accuses Israel of apartheid, persecution
One of the world’s best-known human rights groups said Tuesday that Israel is guilty of the international crimes of apartheid and persecution because of discriminatory policies toward Palestinians within its own borders and in the occupied territories.
In a sweeping, 213-page report, the New York-based Human Rights Watch joins a growing number of commentators and rights groups who view the conflict not primarily as a land dispute but as a single regime in which Palestinians — who make up roughly half the population of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza — are systematically denied basic rights granted to Jews.
Israel adamantly rejects that characterization, saying its Arab minority enjoys full civil rights. It views Gaza, from which it withdrew soldiers and settlers in 2005, as a hostile entity ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas, and it considers the West Bank to be disputed territory subject to peace negotiations — which collapsed more than a decade ago.
Human Rights Watch focused its report on the definitions of apartheid and persecution used by the International Criminal Court, which launched a probe into possible Israeli war crimes last month. Israel rejects the court as biased.
Citing public statements by Israeli leaders and official policies, HRW argued that Israel has “demonstrated an intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians” in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, coupled with “systematic oppression” and “inhumane acts.”
“When these three elements occur together, they amount to the crime of apartheid,” it said.
As to the charge of persecution, the group cited “grave abuses” in the occupied territories, including land confiscation, the systematic denial of building permits, home demolitions and “sweeping, decades-long restrictions on freedom of movement and basic human rights.”
The report cites a range of policies it says are aimed at ensuring a Jewish majority in Israel and lands it intends to keep, while largely confining Palestinians to scattered enclaves under overarching Israeli control, with policies that encourage Palestinians to leave.
While such policies are far more severe in the occupied territories, HRW said they can also be found in Israel itself, where Palestinian citizens, who make up roughly 20% of the population, face widespread discrimination when it comes to housing, land access and basic services.
Omar Shakir, the author of the report, said that from the heady early days of the peace process in the 1990s up until the Obama years, “there was enough there to question whether there was an intent for permanent domination.”
But with the demise of the peace process; Israel’s plans to annex up to a third of the West Bank, which were put on hold but never abandoned; its massive expansion of settlements and infrastructure linking them to Israel; and the passing of a controversial nation-state law favoring Jews — many say it’s no longer possible to view the current situation as temporary.
“Prominent voices have for years warned that Israeli conduct risked turning into apartheid,” Shakir said. “This 213-page report finds that the threshold has been crossed.”
Israel rejected the report. Human Rights Watch “is known to have a long-standing anti-Israel agenda,” the Foreign Ministry said. “The fictional claims that HRW concocted are both preposterous and false.”
Israel’s supporters reject allegations of apartheid, pointing to the existence of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which administers scattered West Bank enclaves under agreements signed in the 1990s.
Israel and the Palestinians have held several rounds of peace talks since then that included discussions of Palestinian independence but were unable to reach a final agreement.
Eugene Kontorovich, director of international law at the Kohelet Policy Forum, a conservative Israeli think tank, said the Palestinians were responsible for their fate. “They have chosen it by rejecting alternatives,” he said.
HRW and other rights groups say that despite the existence of the Palestinian Authority, Israel maintains overarching control over nearly every aspect of Palestinian lives in both the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel has exclusive control over 60% of the West Bank, its borders and airspace, and imposes restrictions on movement and residency. The nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank have full Israeli citizenship, while the territory’s 2.5 million Palestinians live under military rule.
The disparity could be seen in Israel’s successful coronavirus vaccination campaign, with shots freely offered to settlers but largely denied to their Palestinian neighbors.
In Gaza, an Israeli blockade imposed after Hamas seized power has largely confined 2 million Palestinians to the coastal strip and decimated the economy. Israel imposes heavy restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza, as does neighboring Egypt.
The agreements reached in the 1990s were intended to be temporary, pending an historic peace accord that would establish a Palestinian state in most of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 war. But that kind of agreement appears farther out of reach than at any point in the last three decades.
Israel is dominated by right-wing parties opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state. Neither of the rival Palestinian governments in the West Bank or Gaza commands a national movement that could make major concessions, even if Israel were willing to do the same.
Many have concluded that a negotiated two-state solution — still widely seen internationally as the only way of resolving the conflict — will never happen.
Instead of focusing on maps and borders, they call for equal rights for Jews and Palestinians in one binational state, a confederation or some other arrangement.
Kontorovich, voicing a common Israeli criticism, accused HRW of unfairly singling Israel out and trying to delegitimize it.
“Why say it’s apartheid? Why not just say Israel has some discriminatory policies that we don’t like?” he said. “Because for discriminatory policies, what do you do? You change the policies. ... What do you do with an apartheid regime? You have to replace it.”
Human Rights Watch does not adopt a position on what a final agreement should look like, but says any attempt to resolve the conflict must recognize the reality on the ground.
“The underlying issue is structural repression and discrimination,” Shakir said. “You need to address rights abuse and then create a context in which there can be a political solution that all parties reach.”
Philippines weighs extending lockdown as COVID cases top 1M
Coronavirus infections surged past 1 million in the Philippines on Monday as officials assess whether to extend a monthlong lockdown in the Manila region amid a grim spike in cases or relax it to fight a recession, joblessness and hunger.
The Department of Health reported 8,929 new infections on Monday, bringing the country’s total to 1,006,428, including 16,853 deaths. The totals are the second highest in Southeast Asia after Indonesia.
The Philippines imposed its first virus lockdown in March last year, confining millions of people to their homes and shutting public transport and most businesses. The heavy restrictions were eased later in the year but the economy still contracted by 9.6% in 2020, with unemployment and hunger at their worst in years.
Infections, however, spiked again last month to some of the worst levels in Asia, prompting President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration to reimpose a lockdown in the Manila region, the country’s financial and commercial hub with more than 25 million people. Several hospitals in the metropolis reported being overwhelmed, with new COVID-19 patients waiting in hospital driveways, ambulances and cars.
Hospital officials say many health workers have been infected or have had to take a break due to stress and fatigue.
Despite a slight decline in new cases, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said he believes the current lockdown should be extended by another week or two. Economic officials have warned that a prolonged lockdown would increase unemployment and slow an economic recovery.
“Our health system’s capacity hasn’t improved that much,” Duque told the DZMM radio network, adding the shortage of hospital intensive care units in some cities remains critical.
The Philippine Red Cross said surging infections have placed hospitals “under siege,” and that it has set up field hospital tents and converted unused classrooms and buildings to quarantine patients. “We urgently need more medical volunteers,” said Sen. Richard Gordon, who heads the Philippine Red Cross. “Urgent extra medical care is a matter of life and death.”
Duterte and his administration have faced widespread criticism over his handling of the pandemic and the sluggish start last month of a vaccination campaign which has been hampered by supply problems, delivery delays and public hesitancy.
Concerned Filipinos have set up sidewalk stalls across the country marked “community pantries” to hand out donated rice, noodles, eggs, vegetables and other food items to the poor. The stalls have drawn swarms of people, sparking concerns from lockdown enforcers.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque tried to paint a more optimistic outlook. While he acknowledged the number of infections has ballooned, he stressed that most patients have recovered and the government is taking steps to make intensive care units available for patients with severe infections.
“Let’s not focus on the total figures. Let’s look at the figures of nearly 900,000 who have recovered and our case fatality rate that is low based on the world average,” Roque said in a televised briefing. “So, I don’t think it is a negative reflection.”
Cabinet officials and medical experts are to meet Tuesday to recommend whether to continue the lockdown to Duterte, who may announce a decision on Wednesday, Roque said.
35 years since nuclear disaster, Chernobyl warns, inspires
The vast and empty Chernobyl Exclusion Zone around the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident is a baleful monument to human mistakes. Yet 35 years after a power plant reactor exploded, Ukrainians also look to it for inspiration, solace and income.
Reactor No. 4 at the power plant 110 kilometers (65 miles) north of the capital Kyiv exploded and caught fire deep in the night on April 26, 1986, shattering the building and spewing radioactive material high into the sky.
Soviet authorities made the catastrophe even worse by failing to tell the public what had happened — although the nearby plant workers’ town of Pripyat was evacuated the next day, the 2 million residents of Kyiv weren’t informed despite the fallout danger. The world learned of the disaster only after heightened radiation was detected in Sweden.
Eventually, more than 100,000 people were evacuated from the vicinity and a 2,600-square-kilometer (1,000-square-mile) exclusion zone was established where the only activity was workers disposing of waste and tending to a hastily built sarcophagus covering the reactor.
Radiation continued to leak from the reactor building until 2019, when the entire building was covered by an enormous arch-shaped shelter. As robots inside the shelter began dismantling the reactor, officials felt new optimism about the zone.
“This is a place of tragedy and memory, but it is also a place where you can see how a person can overcome the consequences of a global catastrophe,” said Bohdan Borukhovskyi, Ukraine’s deputy environment minister.
Also read: Ukraine continues to battle forest fire near Chernobyl
“We want a new narrative to appear — it was not a zone of exclusion, but a zone of development and revival,” he said.
For him, that narrative includes encouraging tourism.
“Our tourism is unique, it is not a classic concept of tourism,” he said. “This is an area of meditation and reflection, an area where you can see the impact of human error, but you can also see the human heroism that corrects it.”
The Chernobyl zone saw its tourism increase twofold after the lauded television miniseries of 2019 and officials hope that level of interest will continue, or grow, once the global pandemic has receded.
One of the prime draws for tourists is to see the ruins of Pripyat, the once-modern town of 50,000 now being taken over by decay and vegetation. Work is underway to build paths to make it easier for visitors to navigate the ruins.
The Chernobyl plant is out of service, but there is still much work to be done at the decommissioned plant. Borukhovskyi said all four of its reactors are to be dismantled only by 2064.
Ukraine also has decided to use the deserted zone as the site for its centralized storage facility for the spent fuel from the country’s four remaining nuclear power plants, and that is to open this year. Until recently, the fuel was disposed of in Russia.
Storing the spent fuel at home will save the country an estimated $200 million a year.
“We are doing everything possible so that this territory, where it is now impossible for people to live, is used with benefit and gives the country a profit,” said Serhiy Kostyuk, head of the agency that manages the exclusion zone.
Also read: 'Chernobyl' miniseries sends curious tourists to Lithuania
Although the radiation level in the zone is low enough that tourists can visit and workers can carry out their jobs, permanent residence is banned. However, more than 100 people still live in the zone that extends 30 kilometers (18 miles) around the nuclear power plant, despite orders to leave the site.
Among them is 85-year-old former teacher Yevgeny Markevich, who said: “It’s a great happiness to live at home, but it’s sad that it’s not as it used to be.
Today, he grows potatoes and cucumbers on his garden plot, which he takes for tests “in order to partially protect myself.”
Long-term effects on human health remain the subject of intense scientific debate. Immediately after the accident, 30 plant workers and firefighters died from acute radiation sickness. Later, thousands of people died from radiation-related illnesses such as cancer.
To the surprise of many who expected the area might be a dead zone for centuries, wildlife is thriving: Bears, bison, wolves, lynx, wild horses and dozens of bird species live in the people-free territory.
According to scientists, the animals were much more resistant to radiation than expected, and were able to quickly adapt to strong radiation. Ukrainian scientists are researching this phenomenon together with colleagues from Japan and Germany.
“This is a gigantic territory ... in which we keep a chronicle of nature,” said biologist Denis Vishnevskiy, 43, who has been observing nature in the reserve for the past 20 years. “The exclusion zone is not a curse, but our resource ”
The Ukrainian authorities are calling for the exclusion zone to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, since the object is a unique place “of interest to all mankind”. The Ministry of Culture of Ukraine has already taken steps to recognize the zone as a monument, which will attract more funding and tourists.
“Chernobyl should not become a wild playground for adventure hunters,” said Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko. “People should leave the exclusion zone with the awareness of the historical memory of this place and its importance for all mankind.”
In the spirit of preserving the memories, some enthusiasts have created the Chornobyl App, which includes declassified documents about the disaster and allows users to explore augmented-reality view of the zone and structures.
Also read: Ukraine: Chernobyl reactor's radioactive dust shelter opened
“Sixty percent of Ukrainians do not know the date of the accident and we decided that there should be a resource where a lot of verified information is collected,” said Valeriy Korshunov, one of the free app’s developers.
US will share AstraZeneca vaccines with world
The U.S. will begin sharing its entire pipeline of vaccines from AstraZeneca once the COVID-19 vaccine clear federal safety reviews, the White House told The Associated Press on Monday, with as many as 60 million doses expected to be available for export in the coming months.
The move greatly expands on the Biden administration’s action last month to share about 4 million doses of the vaccine with Mexico and Canada. The AstraZeneca vaccine is widely in use around the world but not yet authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The move comes as the White House is increasingly assured about the supply of the three vaccines being administered in the U.S., particularly following the restart of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot over the weekend.
Also read: Governments give varying advice on AstraZeneca vaccine
“Given the strong portfolio of vaccines that the U.S. already has and that have been authorized by the FDA, and given that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not authorized for use in the U.S., we do not need to use the AstraZeneca vaccine here during the next several months,” said White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients. “Therefore the U.S. is looking at options to share the AstraZeneca doses with other countries as they become available.”
More than 3 million people worldwide have died of COVID-19.
About 10 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine have been produced but have yet to pass review by the FDA to “meet its expectations for product quality,” Zients said. That process could be completed in the next several weeks. About 50 million more doses are in various stages of production and could be available to ship in May and June pending FDA sign-off.
The U.S. has yet to finalize where the AstraZeneca doses will go, Zients said. Neighbors Mexico and Canada have asked the Biden administration to share more doses, while dozens of other countries are looking to access supplies of the vaccine. The doses will be donated by the U.S. government, which has contracted with the company for a total of 300 million doses — though the company has faced production issues.
AstraZeneca’s doses in the U.S. were produced at an Emergent BioSolutions plant in Baltimore that has come under increased regulatory and public scrutiny after botching batches of the J&J vaccine. The U.S. pressed J&J to take over the plant and, as part of the effort to ensure the quality of newly produced vaccines, directed the facility to stop making the AstraZeneca shot. AstraZeneca is still looking to identify a new U.S. production facility for its future doses.
Also read: Australia halts AstraZeneca vaccine for most people under 50
AstraZeneca’s vaccine was initially expected to be the first to receive federal emergency authorization, and the U.S. government ordered enough for 150 million Americans before issues with the vaccine’s clinical trial held up clearance. The company’s 30,000-person U.S. trial didn’t complete enrollment until January, and it has still not filed for an emergency use authorization with the FDA.
SOS messages, panic as virus breaks India's health system
Dr. Gautam Singh dreads the daily advent of the ventilator beeps, signaling that oxygen levels are critically low, and hearing his critically ill patients start gasping for air in the New Delhi emergency ward where he works.
Like other doctors across the country, which on Monday set another record for new coronavirus infections for a fifth day in a row at more than 350,000, the cardiologist has taken to begging and borrowing cylinders of oxygen just to keep his most critical patients alive for one more day.
On Sunday evening, when the oxygen supplies of other nearby hospitals were also near empty, the desperate 43-year-old took to social media, posting an impassioned video plea on Twitter.
“Please send oxygen to us,” he said with folded hands and a choked voice. “My patients are dying.”
India was initially seen as a success story in weathering the pandemic, but the virus is now racing through its massive population of nearly 1.4 billion, and systems are beginning to collapse.
SOS messages like the one Singh sent reveal the extent of panic in a country where infections are hitting new peaks daily.
In addition to oxygen supplies running out, intensive care units are operating at full capacity and nearly all ventilators are in use. As the death toll mounts, the night skies in some Indian cities glow from the funeral pyres, as crematoria are overwhelmed and bodies are burned outside in the open air.
On Monday, the country reported another 2,812 deaths, with roughly 117 Indians succumbing to the disease every hour — and experts say even those figures are likely an undercount. The new infections brought India’s total to more than 17.3 million, behind only the United States.
Doctors like Singh are on the front lines, trying to get the supplies they need to keep their patients alive.
Singh received 20 oxygen cylinders on Monday, only enough to limp the hospital through the day until the ventilators start sending out their warning beeps again.
“I feel helpless because my patients are surviving hour to hour,” Singh said in a telephone interview. “I will beg again and hope someone sends oxygen that will keep my patients alive for just another day.”
As bad as the situation is, experts warn it is likely to get worse.
Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center at Duke University, said it would be impossible for the country to keep up with needs over the coming days as things stand.
“The situation in India is tragic and likely to get worse for some weeks to months,” he said, adding that a “concerted, global effort to help India at this time of crisis” is desperately needed.
The White House said the U.S. is “working around the clock” to deploy testing kits, ventilators and personal protective equipment, and it would seek to provide oxygen supplies as well. It said it would also make available sources of raw material urgently needed to manufacture Covishield, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India.
“Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, we are determined to help India in its time of need,” President Joe Biden said in a tweet.
Help and support were also offered from archrival Pakistan, which said it could provide relief including ventilators, oxygen supply kits, digital X-ray machines, protective equipment and related items.
Germany’s Health Ministry said it was “urgently working to put together an aid package” for India consisting of ventilators, monoclonal antibodies, the drug Remdesivir, as well as surgical and N95 protective masks.
Stung by criticism of its lack of preparation ahead of the wave of infections, the federal government has asked industrialists to increase the production of oxygen and life-saving drugs in short supply.
But many say it is too late — the breakdown a stark failure for a country that boasted of being a model for other developing nations.
Only three months ago, the country’s leaders were boisterous, delivering messages that the worse was over.
In January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared victory over the coronavirus, telling the virtual gathering of the World Economic Forum that India’s success couldn’t be compared with anywhere else.
A little less than a month later, his Bharatiya Janata Party passed a resolution hailing Modi as a “visionary leader” who had already “defeated” the virus.
By the second week of March, India’s health minister declared that the country was “in the endgame” of the pandemic.
At the same time, the patients arriving at India’s hospitals were far sicker and younger than previously seen, prompting warnings by health experts that India was sitting on a ticking timebomb, which went either unnoticed or ignored.
Millions of Hindu devotees celebrated the festival of Holi across the country at the end of March, foregoing social distancing guidelines and masks. Politicians, including Modi, spearheaded mammoth election rallies where tens of thousands participated without masks. And millions more gathered by the Ganges River for special Hindu prayers as recently as last week.
Now it’s suspected all these events might have accelerated the unprecedented surge India is seeing now.
“Many people across India are paying with their lives for that shameful behavior by political leaders,” Udayakumar said.
In a radio address on Sunday, Modi sought to deflect the criticism and said the “storm” of infections had left the country “shaken.”
“It is true that many people are getting infected with corona,” he said. “But the number of people recovering from corona is equally high.”
India’s government said last week it would expand its vaccination program to make all adults eligible, something long urged by health experts.
But vaccinations take time to show their effect on the numbers of new infections, and there are questions of whether manufacturers will be able to keep up with the demand. The pace of vaccination across the country also appears to be struggling.
Meantime, ordinary citizens are taking matters into their own hands, doing what they say the government should have done a long time ago.
Volunteers, from students to technology professionals, non-profit organizations and journalists, are rallying to circulate information on the availability of hospital beds, critical drugs and oxygen cylinders.
Like Dr. Singh, many have taken to social media, particularly Twitter, to crowdsource lists of plasma donors and oxygen cylinder supplies.
The system’s imperfect, but some are getting badly needed help.
Rashmi Kumar, a New Delhi homemaker, spent her Sunday scouring Twitter, posting desperate pleas for an oxygen cylinder for her critically ill father.
At the same time, she made countless calls to hospitals and government helpline numbers, to no avail.
By evening her 63-year-old father was gasping for breath.
“I was prepared for the worst,” Kumar said.
But out of nowhere, a fellow Twitter user reported an available oxygen cylinder some 60 kilometers (37 miles) away. Kumar drove to the person’s house where she was handed over the oxygen cylinder by a man.
“I was helped by a stranger when my own government continues to fail thousands like me,” she said. “Unfortunately, everyone is on their own now.”
UK to send medical supplies to India
The UK will send medical equipment to India as the latter continues to suffer from a record surge in coronavirus cases, the British government announced Sunday, reported Anadolu Agency.
India set a new global record for daily coronavirus cases for the fourth day in a row on Sunday.
There were 349,691 new cases, taking the total to 16.96 million. Only the US has had more overall cases.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been due to visit India this week but cancelled his trip due to the surge in coronavirus cases there.
In a statement, he said: "We stand side by side with India as a friend and partner during what is a deeply concerning time in the fight against COVID-19.”
"Vital medical equipment, including hundreds of oxygen concentrators and ventilators, is now on its way from the UK to India to support efforts to prevent the tragic loss of life from this terrible virus.
"We will continue to work closely with the Indian government during this difficult time, and I'm determined to make sure that the UK does everything it can to support the international community in the global fight against pandemic," he added.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab tweeted: "Today we have sent the first of several urgent deliveries of surplus medical equipment to our friends in India to help provide life-saving care for vulnerable Covid patients. No-one is safe until we are all safe."
India is also suffering from acute shortages of oxygen. The first shipment of medical supplies from the UK will arrive in India on Tuesday morning.
The nine airplane container loads include 495 oxygen concentrators, 120 non-invasive ventilators and 20 manual ventilators. Further shipments of British medical supplies to India will also be sent.
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “The heart-breaking scenes in India show once again how awful this terrible disease is.”
"We are determined to support the people of India through this very difficult time, and I am hugely grateful to those who have worked hard to make this initial delivery happen.
"This first delivery of life saving equipment will provide much needed assistance and we stand ready to do more."
Meanwhile, the UK reported its lowest number of daily coronavirus cases since early September as Britain’s successful vaccination programme continues to prevent a surge of infections despite loosening lockdown measures.
Netherlands to ban flights from India over virus fears
The Dutch ministry in charge of aviation said Sunday that flights from India would be banned until at least May 1 amid concerns about a new coronavirus variant, reported Sputnik.
"A flight ban will take effect for passenger flights from India at 6 pm on Monday, April 26. The flight ban will be in place until at least 00.01 am on May 1," a statement read.
Cargo flights and planes carrying medical personnel and equipment will be exempted.
The flight ban comes on top of an entry ban for non-EU residents. The cabinet decided to double up on it for fear that the Netherlands could become a preferred port of entry for Indians going to the EU.
India has this week reported its highest numbers of new daily cases and deaths since the pandemic began and is facing severe shortages of oxygen. The Dutch government said it would support India with emergency financing of 1 million euro (US$1.2 million).
7th phase of local elections underway in India's West Bengal amid COVID-19 spike
The seventh phase of local elections in India's eastern state of West Bengal is underway amid a huge spike in COVID-19 cases, officials said Monday.
The ongoing phase is being held in the shadow of spiraling COVID-19 cases. During the past 24 hours, 15,889 fresh COVID-19 cases and 57 related deaths were reported across the state.
The polling started from 7:00 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. (local time) amid tight security and adequate arrangements, according to officials.
In the ongoing phase, the voting is going on in 34 constituencies from five districts.
"Until 11:30 a.m. (local time) in today's phase, 37.72 percent of polling has been recorded," an official said. "Polling is going on peacefully and no major untoward incident has been reported so far."
Authorities have deployed 653 companies of paramilitary forces for the ongoing phase.
Special facilities including mandatory sanitization of the polling stations, thermal checking of voters at the entry point have been put in place.
Officials said in view of the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, the option of postal ballot facility has been extended to the electors who are COVID- 19 positive or suspect as certified by the competent authority and are in home or institutional quarantine along with those marked as persons with disabilities and above the age of 80 years.
Officials said people in large numbers were seen standing in queues from morning outside the polling stations.
"All the necessary facilities and security arrangements have been made to ensure free and fair polling during this phase. The Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is being used along with Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) at all polling stations with a view to enhance the transparency of the election process," an election official said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to exercise their right to vote and follow the COVID-19 protocol.
Elections in the state would be completed in eight phases and the last phase is scheduled on April 29. The counting of votes will be carried out on May 2.
India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to unseat the local All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal. Both the parties have been engaged in a tough fight for the electoral battle in the state.
The elections are being held at a time when India is witnessing a record increase in daily COVID-19 cases.
On Monday the country reported the world's biggest-ever daily surge with 352,991 new cases and 2,812 deaths.