India
Pakistan to get visas for T20 World Cup in India
Pakistani cricketers will get visas to play in the upcoming T20 World Cup in India next October.
Jay Shah, secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, on Friday informed the Apex Council about the government's decision on giving visas to the Pakistan players, reports PTI.
Shah spoke to the council in a video conference meeting, where it was also decided that the mega-event – which will complete seven editions this year – will be staged across nine venues.
Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium will host the final; the other venues are Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Dharamsala and Lucknow.
Also read: Former skipper Faruque's mother dies with Covid-19 symptoms
"The visa issue of the Pakistan cricket team has been sorted. However, whether the fans can travel across the border to watch matches is still not clear," a council member told PTI.
"It will be decided in due course of time. However, we had promised ICC that it would be sorted. The secretary announced during the meeting."
India and Pakistan have not played bilateral cricket for almost a decade now due to diplomatic tensions between the two countries.
Pakistan last toured India for a bilateral series in 2012.
Day workers leaving India's Mumbai as virus dries up jobs
Migrant workers are piling into rail stations in India’s financial capital Mumbai to head back to their home villages now that virus-control measures have dried up work in the hard-hit region.
“What do I do now?” asked Ramzan Ali, who’d been earning up to 500 rupees ($7) per day as a laborer but has been out of work for two weeks.
He arrived at Kurla railroad station on Friday morning and joined a long line to buy a ticket to board a train for Balrampur, his village in northern Uttar Pradesh state. Ali, 47, hopes to find some work in the village to feed his wife and four children.
The government of Maharashtra state, home to Mumbai, imposed lockdown-like curbs on Wednesday for 15 days to check the spread of the virus. It closed most industries, businesses and public places and limited the movement of people, but didn’t stop bus, train and air services.
Also read: Mumbai imposes strict virus restrictions as infections surge
An exodus ensued, with panicked day laborers hauling backpacks onto overcrowded trains leaving Mumbai. The migration is raising fears of the virus spreading in rural areas.
Maharashtra has been the center of the nation’s recent record surge in new infections. On Friday, India recorded another high of 217,353 new cases in the past 24 hours, pushing its total since the pandemic began past 14.2 million. The Health Ministry also reported 1,185 fatalities in the past 24 hours, raising deaths to 174,308.
The rush among migrant workers was not as desperate as last year when Indian Railways suspended all passenger train services during a strict and sudden nationwide lockdown. That forced tens of thousands of impoverished workers to walk or ride trucks and buses in soaring heat as they tried to return home.
Also, northern states like Punjab, Haryana and New Delhi and western Rajasthan state haven’t seen large-scale movement of migrant workers yet because it’s the harvesting season. Big farms have hired workers to harvest wheat and other crops and prepare for sowing new crops.
Mohammad Aslam, 24, is a tailor in Mumbai but said he has been sitting idle for 18 days. He was in line to board a train with relatives and others heading to the town of Muzzaffaarpur in eastern Bihar state.
“My extended family has a farm there and I can earn some money by working there,” he said.
Shiva Sanjeev, 27, was desperate to get on to a train because his 70-year-old grandfather is seriously ill in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh state.
“I am getting frantic calls from my parents and other family members to get back to my hometown,” he said.
Covid-19 turns India into vaccine importer from exporter
Covid-19 can change the course of everything on its track. For instance, the pandemic has suddenly turned India into a Covid vaccine importer from a mass exporter.
For the second day in a row, India has reported over two lakh Covid cases -- the second country in the world to report such a high single-day figure. On January 8, the US-registered over three lakh cases.
Also read: Efforts underway to accelerate vaccine delivery to poorer nations
India, in fact, crossed the two lakh mark for the first time on Thursday. And on Friday, the country registered as many as 2,17,353 new cases and 1,185 deaths in 24 hours, taking the national case count and fatalities to 15,69,743 and 1,74,308, respectively.
But suddenly facing an acute shortage of jabs, India -- which has gifted and sold millions of Covid shots to neighbouring countries, including Bangladesh, and Africa through the World Health Organisation's COVAX initiative to date, is now turning to foreign vaccine producers.
Read J&J vaccine to remain in limbo while officials seek evidence
"India began vaccinating its people three months back, but the country is now facing a shortage of Covid jabs. So, the Indian government has decided to start importing vaccines from abroad to continue its mass inoculation drive," a senior government official told UNB.
"The first foreign consignment of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine will arrive in India this month-end. A domestic pharma giant, Dr Reddy's will supply the imported Sputnik vaccine doses in the domestic market," he added.
Also read: Covid-19 vaccine not a 'silver bullet': WHO
In fact, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out the world's largest Covid inoculation programme on January 16. Two 'Made in India' jabs, one developed by the Serum Institute in collaboration with AstraZeneca, and the other by Bharat Biotech, are being given.
India has so far given 11,72,23,509 vaccine doses to its citizens, according to the country's Health Ministry.
However, the vaccine shortage is such that the Indian Health Ministry said Thursday that the country's Drug Controller would process Covid jab import licence in three working days flat, post emergency-use approval.
Read Several U.S. states shut down Johnson & Johnson vaccine sites after adverse reactions reported
“Applications for restricted use in emergency situations for such vaccines may be accompanied by bridging trial protocol, application for import registration certificate and application for import license," the Ministry said in a statement.
"Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO) will process applications for registration certificate and import license, within three working days from the date of approval of restricted use in emergency situations,” it added.
Also read: Canada pauses AstraZeneca vaccine for under 55
India's vaccine shortage may also hit inoculation programmes in poorer economies as WHO is, to a large extent, dependent on supplies from this country. India has exported nearly 65 million doses to foreign countries to date, as per the Indian Foreign Ministry data.
"India will now focus primarily on domestic supplies because the government believes that the countrymen can't suffer at the cost of exports. But no specific call has been taken on halting exports yet," said the official.
Read Funding for vaccine procurement earmarked in deals with WB, ADB: Dr Meerjady
Citigroup to exit retail banking in India
American multinational investment bank Citigroup announced on Thursday that it will exit retail operations in India and 12 other countries, and instead focus on wealth management and institutional businesses.
New York-headquartered Citigroup's subsidiary Citibank is India's largest foreign bank. Citibank India's core services include investment and retail banking, capital markets, risk management and credit cards.
In a statement, Citigroup Chief Executive Jane Fraser said, "Citigroup will depart China, India and 11 other retail markets, where we don't have the scale we need to compete."
Apart from India and China, Citigroup will pull out from Australia, Bahrain, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
"As a result of the ongoing refresh of our strategy, we have decided that we are going to double down on wealth," Fraser said.
"We will operate our consumer banking franchise in Asia and EMEA solely from four wealth centres -- Singapore, Hong Kong, the UAE and London. This positions us to capture the strong growth and attractive returns the wealth management business offers through these important hubs.
"We believe our capital, investment dollars, and other resources are better deployed against higher returning opportunities in wealth management and our institutional businesses in Asia," she added.
Citigroup recently reported its first-quarter income of USD 19.3 billion and profits of $7.9 billion.
With 200,000 in 1 day, India skyrockets past 14M virus cases
India reported more than 200,000 new coronavirus cases Thursday, skyrocketing past 14 million overall as an intensifying outbreak puts a grim weight on its fragile health care system.
In the capital, New Delhi, more than a dozen hotels and wedding banquet halls were ordered to be converted into COVID-19 centers attached to hospitals.
“The surge is alarming,” said S.K. Sarin, a government health expert in New Delhi.
The bustle of India’s biggest city and financial capital, Mumbai, ebbed under lockdown-like curbs to curb the spread of the virus. The action imposed by worst-hit Maharashtra state Wednesday night closed most industries, businesses and public places and limits the movement of people for 15 days, but didn’t stop train and air services.
In recent days, migrant workers hauling backpacks have swarmed overcrowded trains leaving Mumbai, an exodus among panic-stricken day laborers.
In addition to the 200,739 new cases of infection, the Health Ministry also reported 1,038 fatalities from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, taking deaths to 173,123 since the pandemic started last year.
India’s total cases are second behind the United States and its deaths are fourth behind the U.S., Brazil and Mexico. The actual numbers may be much higher with limited testing among India’s nearly 1.4 billion people.
Also Read: India records highest spike of daily COVID-19 cases this year
Shahid Jamil, a virologist, said the recent local and state elections with massive political rallies and a major Hindu festival with hundreds of thousands of devotees bathing in the Ganges river in the northern city of Haridwar were super-spreader events.
India is ramping up its vaccination drive. The Health Ministry said the total vaccinations crossed 114 million with more than 3 million doses administered on Wednesday.
Hospitals in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and several others state were overwhelmed with patients with several hospitals reporting shortage of oxygen cylinders.
Cremation and burial grounds in the worst-hit area also were finding it difficult to cope with the increasing number of bodies arriving for last rites, Indian media reports said.
Imran Sheikh, a resident of the western city of Pune, said hospital authorities asked him to arrange for an oxygen gas cylinder for his relative undergoing COVID-19 treatment.
New Delhi and dozens of other cities and towns imposed night curfews as they battled an infection rate that almost doubled within 11 days.
Also Read: India's COVID-19 tally rises to 11,599,130 with nearly 44,000 new cases .
When infections began plummeting in India in September, many concluded the worst had passed. Masks and social distancing were abandoned. When cases began rising again in February, authorities were left scrambling.
India sees new record of 184,372 COVID-19 cases in 24 hrs
A record number of 184,372 new COVID-19 cases, and 1,027 deaths due to the pandemic were registered across India in the past 24 hours, said the latest data released by the federal health ministry on Wednesday.
The new figures took the total tally to 13,873,825 and the total death toll to 172,085.
The single-day spike in the number of new COVID-19 cases is the highest in the country so far, while the number of deaths in a single day is the highest this year.
This is the ninth time within this month, and the eighth consecutive day, when more than 100,000 new COVID-19 cases were reported in India.
There are still 1,365,704 active cases in the country, while 12,336,036 people have been discharged so far from hospitals after medical treatment.
Also Read: India records highest spike of daily COVID-19 cases this year
In January the number of daily cases in the country had come down to below-10,000. As many as 9,102 new cases were reported between January 25-26, which was the lowest in the previous 237 days. Prior to that the lowest number of daily new cases were 9,304 registered on June 4, 2020.
January 16 was a crucial day in India's fight against the pandemic as the nationwide vaccination drive was kicked off from the day. So far over 111 million people (111,179,578) have been vaccinated across the country.
Meanwhile, the federal government has ramped up COVID-19 testing facilities across the country, while over 260 million tests have been conducted so far.
As many as 260,618,866 tests have been conducted by Tuesday, out of which 1,411,758 tests were conducted on Tuesday alone, said the latest data issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Wednesday.
Also Read: India's COVID-19 tally rises to 11,599,130 with nearly 44,000 new cases .
The national capital Delhi, which has been one of the most COVID-19 affected places in the country, witnessed over 13,468 new cases and 81 deaths through Tuesday. The single-day deaths in Delhi are said to be the highest in over four months.
So far 11,436 people have died in the national capital due to COVID-19, confirmed the Delhi's health department.
Two types of vaccines are being administered to the people in India.
Four die in federal police firing in eastern India
At least four persons were killed in firing by federal security forces when a mob attempted to snatch their weapons outside a polling booth in election-bound West Bengal, triggering a blame-game between the eastern Indian state's ruling Trinamool Congress and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Police said that clashes broke out between a group of local residents and personnel of the para-military Central Indian Security Force in West Bengal's Cooch Behar district, following rumours that an aged man passed out after being thrashed by the federal troops at a polling booth in Sitalkuchi, about 680 km from state capital Kolkata.
"Actually the man who had come to vote fainted, and his treatment was going on across the booth. As rumours spread, locals thought he was beaten by the central forces. A mob soon gathered and tried snatching weapons from the federal troops," police officer Debasish Dhar told the local media.
In self-defence, the Central Indian Security Force personnel opened fire, in which four men, including a first-time voter, died, another police officer said. "The Election Commission of India has stopped polling at the booth in Sitalkuchi and sought a detailed report from the local administration."
Both the Trinamool Congress and the BJP were, however, quick to blame each other for the four deaths.
While Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee accused the central security forces of "planned murder" and demanded Indian Home Minister Amit Shah's resignation, Prime Minister Modi apparently attributed the clashes to the "goons of Trinamool".
"Home Minister Amit Shah is completely responsible for the incident and he himself is the conspirator. I don't blame central forces because they work under the Home Minister's order. We will demand his resignation," Banerjee said at a press conference in the evening, calling the deaths "murder by central forces".
On the other hand, Prime Minister Modi, currently campaigning in the state, slammed Chief Minister Banerjee and her party for the violence. "What happened in Cooch Behar is sad... I offer condolences to bereaved families. Mamata Didi and her goons are jittery because of groundswell of support for the BJP," he said.
However, Banerjee soon hit back at Modi. "The BJP knows it won't win so it's resorting to bombs and violence. The central forces are torturing people in villages. Women, boys and girls are being threatened that they should vote for the BJP. In the state election, 20 people have been killed so far and 13 of them are from our party," she said.
West Bengal is currently witnessing the most high-profile contest in India's ongoing state elections. While Chief Minister Banerjee has harped on being Bengal’s daughter, the BJP has been asking people to vote for "change and socio-economic development" after nearly 50 years of Communist and Trinamool Congress rule.
India records highest COVID-19 daily spike of over 100,000 cases
India recorded a single day spike of 103,558 COVID-19 cases on Monday, the highest so far, thus taking the total tally to 12,589,067.
With 478 deaths since Sunday morning, the death toll stood at 165,101.
There are still 741,830 active cases in the country, while 11,682,136 people have been discharged so far from hospitals after medical treatment.
Also Read: India records highest spike of daily COVID-19 cases this year
There was an increase of 50,233 active cases during the past 24 hours, out of which maximum cases were reported from the southwestern state of Maharashtra.
The number of daily active cases has been on the rise over the past few days, as another wave of COVID-19 looms large in India.
In January the number of daily cases in the country went down to below-10,000. As many as 9,102 new cases were reported on Jan. 25-26, which was the lowest in the previous 237 days. Prior to that the lowest number of daily new cases were 9,304 registered on June 4, 2020.
Also Read: India's COVID-19 tally rises to 11,599,130 with nearly 44,000 new cases .
India launched a nationwide vaccination drive on Jan. 16. So far 79,105,163 people have been vaccinated across the country.
Meanwhile, the federal government has ramped up COVID-19 testing facilities across the country, as over nearly 249 million tests have been conducted so far.
As many as 249,019,657 tests have been conducted till Sunday, out of which 893,749 tests were conducted on Sunday alone, said the latest data issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Monday.
The national capital Delhi, which has been one of the most COVID-19 affected places in the country, witnessed as many as 4,033 new cases and 21 deaths through Sunday.
As many as 11,081 people have died in the city due to COVID-19, confirmed the Delhi health department. Two types of vaccines are being administered to the people in India.
India recovers bodies of 20 more troops after Maoist clashes
India on Sunday recovered the bodies of 20 police and paramilitary troops killed in a gunbattle with Maoist rebels a day earlier in the forests of the eastern Chhattisgarh state, police said.
The fighting erupted Saturday when Indian security forces, acting on intelligence, raided a rebel hideout in Bijapur district, police said.
This was India's deadliest engagement with the Maoist rebels in four years. The government has said the insurgents, inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, pose the country’s most serious internal security threat.
Also read: India police: Gunbattle kills 5 troops, Maoist rebel
At least 22 Indian troops were killed and 31 others wounded, with seven in critical condition, said senior police officer D.M. Awasthi. One security force member was still missing, he said. The body of one female insurgent was recovered Saturday.
Ashok Juneja, the Inspector General for anti-Maoist operations, said the rebels also suffered heavy casualties but had carried away the bodies of their slain comrades. Speaking with The Associated Press by phone, Juneja said the fleeing rebels took weapons and ammunition from slain security personnel.
Another paramilitary officer, Hemant Kumar Sahu, said some 400 rebels had gathered in the area.
Indian soldiers have been battling the Maoist rebels across several central and northern states since 1967, when the militants — also known as Naxalites — began fighting to demand more jobs, land and wealth from natural resources for the country’s poor indigenous communities.
In 2017, hundreds of rebels ambushed security forces in the rebel heartland of Chhattisgarh, killing 25 commandos. Before that year, the deadliest Maoist attack was in 2010, when rebels killed 76 soldiers in Chhattisgarh.
Last month, a roadside bomb killed at least four Indian policemen and wounded 14 in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh state.
Also read: Maoist rebels kill 15 police commandos, driver in west India
Years of neglect — marked by a lack of jobs, school and health care clinics — have helped to isolate the local villagers, making them open to overtures by the rebels, who speak their tribal languages and have promised to fight for a better future with more education, jobs and access to resources, especially in Chhattisgarh, one of India’s poorest states despite its vast mineral wealth.
Rebel attacks in other Indian states are less frequent, but also sometimes result in casualties.
Also read: Indian Maoist rebels kill 5 days before national election
Pakistan, India peace move silences deadly Kashmir frontier
Concrete bunkers and the heavy artillery cannons dug deep into Himalayan Kashmir’s rugged terrain have fallen silent.
At least for now.
The Line of Control, a highly militarized de facto border that divides the disputed region between the two nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan, and a site of hundreds of deaths, is unusually quiet after the two South Asian neighbors last month agreed to reaffirm their 2003 cease-fire accord.
The somewhat surprising decision prompted a thaw in the otherwise turbulent relations between the countries but also raised questions about the longevity of the fragile peace, in part due to earlier failures. The crackdown by Indian forces and attacks by rebels have continued inside Indian-held Kashmir.
Also read: Pakistan PM to India PM: We too want peaceful relations
The cease-fire, experts say, could stabilize the lingering conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Kashmiris say the rare move should lead to resolution of the dispute.
It was unclear what prompted the two militaries to adhere to the accord they had largely ignored for years. But experts point to a climbdown by both from their earlier stance following a decision by India to strip Kashmir of its semi-autonomy and take direct control over the region in 2019, and its monthslong bitter border standoff with China.
Paul Staniland, associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago, said the ongoing costs of clashes along the Line of Control, the economic effects of the pandemic, and other foreign policy challenges facing both countries might have combined to create incentives to pursue a cease-fire.
Since 2003, the cease-fire has largely held despite regular skirmishes. Both India and Pakistan claim the region in its entirety and have fought two wars over it, and in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, militants have fought against Indian rule since 1989.
Each country has accused the other of heightening tensions by significantly ratcheting up border attacks in the last four years, leading to the deaths of soldiers and villagers.
The cease-fire announcement came shortly after China and India agreed to a military disengagement from a portion of their disputed border after a monthslong deadly military standoff. It had led to fears of a two-front war between India and China, with the latter assisted by its closest ally, Pakistan.
“Some sort of pressure, possibly from Washington and Beijing for different reasons, is pushing India and Pakistan for wider peace moves in the region,” said Siddiq Wahid, historian and former vice chancellor of the Islamic University of Science and Technology.
Also read: Pakistan expert: Religiosity aiding spike in militancy
Beijing wants Pakistan to focus on securing its investments as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive, cross-continental infrastructure development project aimed at expanding China’s commercial connections globally. Islamabad is a key partner and some Chinese-built highways snake through Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. The U.S., on the other hand, is courting India to focus its energies on countering China.
“If Pakistan is indeed looking to move toward a new regional role, embracing geopolitics, reducing tensions with India is a must, and if India is going to pivot to deal with a rising China, it has reasons to want to calm relations with Pakistan,” said Staniland, a South Asia expert. “The real question is whether these reasons remain powerful enough over time.”
The thaw in relations became apparent when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an avowed Hindu nationalist, ceased playing up rhetoric against Pakistan and referencing Kashmir in campaigning for elections in four key states.
In Pakistan, too, political leadership and the powerful military have shifted from their earlier position of not engaging with India until it reversed its decision to annul Kashmir’s semi-autonomy.
Last week, Pakistan’s army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa said it was time for the two countries to “bury the past” and resolve the dispute over Kashmir peacefully. His remarks followed Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s repeated calls for good relations with India with a caveat that the Kashmir dispute remains at the center of any future talks. Since the announcement of the cease-fire, Khan, too, has abandoned his past rhetoric against Modi.
Modi appeared to reciprocate, sending last week a letter to Khan seeking cordial relations. Khan replied Tuesday but reiterated that lasting peace was mainly contingent on resolving the future of Kashmir.
The rapprochement has sparked skepticism among Kashmiris who fear the dispute could be pushed to the backburner given the fast administrative and political changes in the region by India that they have likened to settler colonialism.
“We are not against talks and want an end to violence. But there has to be an end to repression too,” said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, an influential Kashmiri separatist leader who has been under house arrest since August 2019. “The whole idea behind the negotiations has to be a resolution of the Kashmir issue as per the wishes of its people.”
In the past, Pakistan and India made multiple attempts to broker a deal over Kashmir. They also initiated confidence-building measures like exclusive barter trade between two parts of Kashmir, sporting games and bus services for divided families.
“The cease-fire can lead to relative peace but one should not expect lasting peace,” said Vinod Bhatia, who was India’s director-general for military operations from 2012 to 2014.
Meanwhile, villagers living along the frontier are paying the price.
Also read: Pakistani, Indian militaries agree to stop firing in Kashmir
The lives of Nader Hussain and Munshi Muhammad Arshad are divided by a barbed concertina wire. Hussain lives in Indian-controlled Kashmir and Arshad in the part controlled by Pakistan.
In late November, Hussain saw an artillery shell fired by Pakistani soldiers fly towards him in his mountainous village. The 50-year-old couldn’t outrun the projectile and lost both legs in the blast. Two other men were killed on the spot.
“The two countries do politics on our bodies, but this must end,” he said.
On the other side, the 45-year-old Arshad, who lost his father to an artillery shell fired by Indian soldiers, hoped for peace.
“But a durable peace,” he said, “will only come when the Kashmir issue is resolved.”