Docs tell elderly to take jabs as they are most vulnerable

Docs tell elderly to take jabs as they are most vulnerable

55% Of Covid Deaths In Raj Among 60+

Intishab.Ali@timesgroup.com

Jaipur: 03.03.2021 

Vaccination drive for people above 60 years of age has come as a welcome relief as they are most vulnerable when it comes to fatalities from the virus. Acording to the health department, more than 1,500 people above the age of 60 years have died of Covid in the last one year, which comprises 55% of the total fatalities in the state.

Doctors treating elderly Covid patients have advised them to get the jab without delay.

Doctors, who have been treating Covid patients since the first case was reported, say the elderly population require more intensive care than the younger population.

“People aged 60 and above have low immunity to fight against most of the diseases. They also have associated comorbid condition such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, asthma and cancer and their immunity is compromised. There are statistics which show that over 55% Covid deaths in state are above 60 years. They are more prone to develop severe complication due to Covid, which is why the government also wants to give them protection on priority basis,” said Dr Sudhir Bhandari, head of the expert Covid-19 treatment group constituted by the state government and principal and controller, SMS Medical College.

Among elderly people, course of disease tends to be more severe resulting in higher mortality.

“It is the same disease, but when infected young population, it remains mild to moderate in majority of the cases. The associated comorbid conditions in elderly people is the major reason of complications due to Covid, which is why elderly population should get vaccinated against Covid to have protection,” said Dr Virendra Singh, member of state advisory committee on Covid.

Elderly people, for the past one year, have spent a restricted life following Covid protocol to ward off risk of getting infection. They have not travelled to other cities and other countries to stay safe. The doctors say that the time has come for the elderly to get the jab.

Village council sentences ‘witches’ to death in Jharkhand

Village council sentences ‘witches’ to death in Jharkhand

5 Of A Family Killed, 5-Yr-Old Not Spared

Jaideep Deogharia & KA Gupta TNN

Buruhatu-Amtoli Pahar (Jharkhand):

Mathura Topno had “failed” his village. In four months, Buruhatu-Amtoli Pahar had lost eight people. Cattle were dropping dead. As the village priest and healer, he had not been able to save them. The least he could do now was point them to the source of “evil”. So, on the morning of February 23, dragged to the centre of the Gram Sabha with some 100 people around him, Mathura was asked for names. He gave them random names.

The next morning, an elderly man found the bloodsoaked body of Josfina Topno, 55, just outside her mud house. Inside, on a wooden cot, was the body of her husband, Nikodim, 60. And in the next room, piled on top of one another were three more corpses — that of their son Vincent, 35, their daughter-in-law Silvanti, 30, and their grandson Albin,

5. A bright yellow and pink toy truck and a cart fashioned out of a box lay next to Albin’s lifeless body.

The family had been hacked to death with axes at night about 10 hours after the gram sabha where Mathura had given the names. “It was all done in 3 minutes,” one of the killers, Salim Topno, boasted later.

When TOI visited the village, there was a dreadful silence. Those who did agree to speak said “black magic” had disrupted their lives. “The villagers believed Sarna (the presiding animist deity) has been angered,” Birendra Surin, mukhiapati of Sarita, the panchayat under which the village lies, said. “We knew some action would be taken,” said another man. Rebuked by another in Mundari, the tribal language, he added, “But we didn’t know they would be killed.”

Dotted with Pathalgarhi, or stone slabs, in honour of the dead, Buruhatu-Amtoli Pahar has been home to 80-odd families and their ancestors for over 500 years. Most families practise animism, seven follow Christianity, and some are Hindu. The village has a middle school, the neighbouring Titih village has a high school and the panchayat has five missionary-run schools. But just one family in the village has studied beyond Class X. Most have small patches of land and others were migrant labourers, many of whom are back with limited prospects and little hope.

Among those who returned was Amrit Topno, 30, Nikodim’s nephew. Amrit and his wife Wilmani live in the house across Nikodim’s. When the bodies were taken for autopsy, Amrit offered to accompany and help the police. Days later, he was identified as one of the killers.

Amrit is among eight who have been arrested so far, along with Soma (25), Sunil (30), Philip (55), Phirangi (45), Sawan (34), Daniel (40) and Salim (25). Seven years ago, Salim had been arrested for killing two women after branding them as witches, tying their bodies to a bike, dragging them to the railway tracks that run by the village and leaving the corpses there.

“All of them were inebriated that night,” Suleman said. Barring Daniel and Philip, the rest are distant relatives of one another.

But why were Josfina and her family targeted? In the villages of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha — the places that record the most “witch-hunt” cases — something as innocuous as taking a bath at night or praying at night can attract accusations. As of now, there seem to be no answers.

Full report on www.toi.in

The family had been hacked to death with axes at night about 10 hours after the gram sabha where the village priest and healer had given the names

No Gmail; govt employees told to use only official email

No Gmail; govt employees told to use only official email

KP.Saikiran@timesgroup.com

Thiruvananthapuram:  03.03.2021 

As part of allaying concerns about government data being shared to private hands and to ensure secure communication between officials, the state government has asked all its employees to switch over to government email services instead of using private ones like Gmail or Yahoo mail.

According to the circular issued by the electronics and information technology department in this regard on February 19 this year (accessed by TOI), the employees have been recommended to use emails under the domain “gov.in”. As per the circular, the National Informatics Centre (NIC) would create two different IDs, one based on the designation of the officer and the other based on the name, on the basis of the requests from the government organisations and departments. Designation-based IDs will be created for those officers who are dealing with the public directly. An officer will be designated for handling the email address in all the departments.

An officer will have to handover the designation-based IDs to his successor officer when he moves out of that post. However, the name-based IDs will remain with the officers during their entire tenure in the government service. Any email account inactive for 90 days will be deactivated after intimating the concerned department, and if it remains inactive without any communication for180 days, it would be permanently deleted. The electronics and IT department has specifically instructed that other than the government websites, the email IDs assigned under this domain should not be used to subscribe for any other service through any other entity. The NIC has also been asked to keep track of the email IDs assigned to each department so that the communication history can be tracked.

The state government’s latest communique is based on the email policy of the Centre issued on February 18, 2015, by which the use of private email services was banned for official purposes. The Centre had come up with email policy as a remedy to the concerns over the foreign servers of the private email service providers and allegations of email snooping by foreign countries.

The ministry of electronics and information technology had then made the policy applicable to all the employees under the union government, and also those states and union territories that choose to go by the policy in future. As per the policy, the domain email.gov.in of the NIC was decided as the official email of the government. This domain would be used for all official communications by all the government organizations, except those dealing with national security.

The state government’s latest communique is based on the email policy of the Centre issued on February 18, 2015, by which the use of private email services was banned for official purposes

Benched DU VC to Prez: Bid to remove me on flimsy grounds

Benched DU VC to Prez: Bid to remove me on flimsy grounds

Manash Gohain & Shradha Chettri TNN

New Delhi:03.03.2021 

Delhi University vice-chancellor YogeshTyagi, who is under suspension since October 28 last year over charges of dereliction of duty, has written to the institutional visitor, President Ram Nath Kovind, alleging that some “elements” from the Union education ministry were encouraging certain “extra constitutional” people to clamour for his removal on flimsy grounds.

In the letter sent on Monday, Tyagi claimed that the inquiry being conducted against him was not in accordance with norms and, hence, his suspension should be revoked. The chancellor’s nominee to the DU Executive Council, Raj Kumar Bhatia, has also written to the enquiry committee with a copy marked to the visitor seeking revocation of Tyagi’s suspension ordered by the President. Asked about the two letters, Bhatia told TOI, “I can’t vouch for professor Tyagi’s letter.” But he admitted to his communication, which is in TOI’s possession.

Tyagi is scheduled to complete his tenure as the VC on March 11. Prior to his suspension, Tyagi was on medical leave.

In his letter, Tyagi said, “The education ministry officials have grossly failed to place before you the various provisions of the Delhi University Act, statutes, ordinances and regulations in their legal (and I would plead, moral as well) perspective as far as they pertain to the role and responsibility of the vice-chancellor personally. Also, some crucial provisions of the Act, statutes and ordinances have been all together overlooked.”

Passenger dies on city bound flight

HEART ISSUES

Passenger dies on city bound flight

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Lucknow:03.03.2021 

A passenger apparently died of heart attack in a Lucknow bound IndiGo flight on Tuesday early morning while the plane was in Pakistan airspace.

The deceased was identified as Raza Habibur Rehman Ali, who was on wheelchair assistance and was travelling from Sharjah to Lucknow.

Sources said the flight left Sharjah around 1:50am on Tuesday with 158 passengers and had to reach Lucknow by 6:55am, but the pilots had to make medical emergency landing at Karachi airport around 3:20am when Raza fell unconscious apparently after suffering a heart attack.

“On arrival at Karachi airport, the passenger was declared dead.

Abhishek Jaiswal, PRO

of Lucknow airport, said, “The victim’s body was alighted at Ahmedabad airport and sent to a local government hospital. The entire aircraft was sanitised before leaving for Lucknow.”

The flight landed at Lucknow airport at 1:47pm

Delhi riots: Court says 100 suspicions don’t make a proof

Delhi riots: Court says 100 suspicions don’t make a proof

Aamir.khan2@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:  03.03.2021 

“From a hundred rabbits you can’t make a horse, a hundred suspicions don’t make a proof.” Quoting these lines from Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, ‘Crime and Punishment’, additional sessions judge Amitabh Rawat discharged two men from the charge of attempt to murder in a north-east Delhi violence case on Monday. “Both the accused persons are discharged of the offences under Section 307 (attempt to murder) IPC and Arms Act,” said the order.

The court had earlier observed that according to criminal jurisprudence, there must be some material against the accused persons to frame a charge. “Presumption can't be stretched to take the shape of proof/ evidence,” it remarked.

The prosecution wanted framing of charges against the two men – Babu and Imran – for being members of an unlawful assembly which was armed with weapons and participated in the rioting on February 25, 2020, near Maujpur.

Alleged victim never seen by police: Judge

Despite the police’s warning, they refused to leave the area, flouting the prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC, it was argued. The accused said the charges were false. The court, however, found a prima facie case and sufficient grounds for presuming that both accused persons had committed rioting and other offences under sections 143, 144, 147 and 148 IPC being part of an unlawful assembly, armed with weapons and committing rioting.

When the court enquired if these offences were the reason why the accused were before it, the state denied it, adding that they had committed their act with the intention or knowledge to cause the death of a gunshot victim.

“The gunshot injury is stated to be caused to Rahul but where is he. His statement is not on record,” judge Rawat noted. His order also highlighted that the police had, after carrying out a long investigation, concluded that the Rahul, alleged to have been shot at by a mob, including the two men , had given a wrong address and a wrong mobile phone number in his medico-legal case (MLC).

“So, by the time, the police arrived at the hospital, the alleged victim, Rahul, had vanished. It is not as if Rahul gave any initial statement and then vanished. The state is categorical in saying that the police never saw Rahul. That being the case, who is going to say who shot whom and by whom and where? The alleged victim has never been seen by the police,” the court observed.

Life is too short, says 101-yr-old after jab

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:03.03.2021 

Debunking all myths about the risks associated with the Covid-19 vaccine, super senior Delhiites led the way on Tuesday as the inoculation drive saw the participation of octogenarians, nonagenarians and a centenarian too.

“The vaccine brings hope of normal life being restored,” smiled Vedpal Sareen, 94. Though wheelchair bound, he arrived at Max Hospital in Saket with his son, Sanjeev. The Sareens, however, complained about the lag on the Co-Win portal, with Sanjeev saying, “This is mismanagement. There wouldn’t be the need for queues if the centres had to simply collect the data and feed it into the system later.”

Meanwhile, the directorate of family and welfare took to social media to announce that 101-year-old Harbansh Lal Mehra had received the jab. Mehra advised other elderly citizens to receive the shots. “There has been no medical problem so far. Go ahead, take the vaccine. Life is very short,” said the centenarian.

In east Delhi, Saraswati Manchandana, 85, who was accompanied by her caretaker, was inoculated on Tuesday. “I had a backache while waiting for my turn. The waiting time should be reduced for octogenarians,” she said.

Senior citizens after taking the first shot of vaccine in New Delhi