Forced to stay, workers now battle hunger

01/04/2020

Nearly 100 of them left for home. With no trains or buses, they just rode home in auto-rickshaws and cycle rickshaws, that on a normal day was the means of earning a living. Thirty-two of them pedalled cycle-rickshaws to cover a distance of 1,390 km to Katihar. Three days later, covering a distance of 554 km, they reached Lucknow on Tuesday morning. “Their mobile phones are switched off, so we don’t know if the police caught them or if they are still continuing on their journey,” Mohammed Nizammudin, another auto-rickshaw driver, whose distant relative is one of the 32 making the journey, says.

For the 80-odd who stayed back, each day is getting more challenging. Coronavirus, the lynchpin of this lockdown, doesn’t occupy much mindspace, though all of them are wearing masks, some readymade, some fashioned out of gamchas.

The group complains that the police posted outside the gates of the colony don’t let them step out. “They hit first and ask questions later. We are shooed back into the colony each time we try to leave. We heard on the radio that the Delhi government is providing food, but we don’t know where or how to get to it,” 38-year-old Abdul says. After a day without any food on Sunday, the Rozi Roti Adhikar Abhiyan provided ₹2,000 for emergency rations on Monday.

‘COVID-19 crisis a turning point in history’

Modi, Macron hold talks over pandemic

01/04/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,NEW DELHI

The COVID-19 pandemic is a “turning point in history”, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a telephone conversation with French President Emanuel Macron on Tuesday.

According to a release by the Ministry of External Affairs, PM Modi expressed his condolences for the loss of lives in the pandemic in France.

“The French President strongly agreed with Prime Minister’s view that the COVID-19 crisis is a turning point in modern history and offers the world an opportunity to forge a new human-centric concept of globalisation,” the MEA statement said, adding that the two leaders had agreed to have Indian and French experts share preventive measures, research on treatment and vaccines.

The two leaders had both appeared on an emergency video conference convened by Saudi King Salman last week to discuss the pandemic, where leaders of the G-20 had committed to infusing $5 trillion into the global economy to mitigate the impact of the virus.

During the conference, Mr. Modi had stressed on the need for the G-20 to look at humanitarian aspects to global challenges like pandemics, climate change and terrorism.

Global concerns

The MEA said Mr. Modi and Mr. Macron had “underlined the importance of not losing sight of other global concerns like climate change, which impact humanity as a whole.

They also stressed the need to devote special attention to the needs of less developed countries, including those in Africa, during the present crisis.”

SC upholds right to discuss COVID-19

It asks the media to publish official version to avoid panic; government told to issue a daily bulletin

01/04/2020, KRISHNADAS RAJAGOPAL,NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the right to free discussion about COVID-19, even as it directed the media to refer to and publish the official version of the developments in order to avoid inaccuracies and large-scale panic.

It ordered the government to start a daily bulletin on COVID-19 developments through all media avenues in the next 24 hours.

A Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde, was responding to a request from the Central government that media outlets, in the “larger interest of justice”, should only publish or telecast anything on COVID-19 after ascertaining the factual position from the government.

A Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) report in the court, signed by Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, explained that “any deliberate or inaccurate” reporting by the media, particularly web portals, had a “serious and inevitable potential of causing panic in larger section of the society”.

The Ministry said any panic reaction in the midst of an unprecedented situation based on such reporting would harm the entire nation. Creating panic is also a criminal offence under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the Ministry said.

But the court took a view balancing free press and the need to avoid panic in society during an unprecedented crisis. “We expect the media [print, electronic or social] to maintain a strong sense of responsibility and ensure that unverified news capable of causing panic is not disseminated. A daily bulletin by the Government of India through all media avenues, including social media and forums to clear the doubts of people, would be made active within a period of 24 hours as submitted by the Solicitor- General of India. We do not intend to interfere with the free discussion about the pandemic, but direct the media refer to and publish the official version about the developments,” the court ordered. Noting that the 21-day nationwide lockdown was “inevitable” in the face of an “unprecedented global crisis” like the COVID-19 pandemic, the government blamed “fake and misleading” messages on social media for creating widespread panic, which led to mass “barefoot” journey of migrant workers from cities to their native villages in rural India.

Fake news

“Deliberate or inadvertent fake news and material capable of causing a serious panic in the minds of the public is found to be the single most unmanageable hindrance in the management of this challenge... Will set up a separate unit headed by a Joint Secretary-level officer in the Health Ministry and consisting of eminent specialist doctors from recognised institutions like AIIMS to answer the queries of citizens,” the Ministry’s 39-page status report said.

The Ministry said the Narendra Modi government, in fact, took “pro-active, pre-emptive and timely” action 13 days before even the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a “public health emergency of international concern”. Very few countries responded as well as India.

But the mass migration of the poor would defeat the preventive measures taken by the Central government, the Ministry said. It said “there was no necessity for migrant workers to rush to their villages” when the Centre, fully conscious that no citizen should be deprived of basic amenities, had announced a ₹1.70 lakh crore package under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana to take care of their daily needs.

30 applications for liquor on Day 1

Kerala is working on logistics to make available supplies to alcohol-dependents

01/04/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT ,KOCHI

On a high: Kerala has the highest per capita consumption of alcohol in the country. Thulasi Kakkat

Alcohol-dependents in Kerala who succeeded in securing prescriptions from doctors to get their daily dose of booze may have to wait for one more day to get their hand on the bottle.

Since the first day of every month is being observed as dry day in the State, they may not be able to buy their quota of alcohol from the Kerala State Beverages Corporation (BEVCO) on April 1. On April 2, BEVCO may make alcohol available on production of the medical pass certified by the Excise Department.

Since the government has ordered the closure of liquor outlets, including retail outlets of the corporation, bars, clubs, and toddy shops, alcohol may have to be made available through the warehouses or godowns of the corporation, a senior BEVCO official said.

BEVCO is working on the logistics to make alcohol available based on the permits to be issued by the Excise Department. The quantity of the Indian Made Foreign Liquor to be made available will depend on the permit, he said.

On Tuesday, the first day after the government issued an order permitting medical passes for the alcohol-dependents, the Excise Department received as many as 30 applications.

“Some applications were rejected as the certificates indicating that the patient had alcohol withdrawal symptoms were issued by retired doctors. Only serving government medical doctors are authorised to issue such certificates,” said S. Aananthakrishnan, Excise Commissioner.

The role of the department is confined to the issuance of passes and the distribution of alcohol will be the responsibility of BEVCO, he said.

The dilemma of a hospital administrator

01/04/2020

The Shakespearean dilemma, “To be or not to be”, holds good for most doctors and surgeons in the country right now. The extraordinary times we live in, with the pandemic looming large and around us, a much-needed 21-day lockdown enforced by the Prime Minister seems the last resort left to take the viral pandemic by its horns.

However, remember the viral illness isn’t the only illness and other non-communicable diseases still continue to be the major killer. This includes diseases related to diabetes mellitus, hypertension, cardiovascular and neurological diseases. The most notable among these are cancers. Most diseases, with the exception of cancer, require a patient to comply with recommendations of a healthy lifestyle, monitoring and drug intake.

The compliance could potentially reduce the need to travel to a clinic/hospital, temporarily reducing footfall inside a healthcare facility, where less-immune people are prone to coming together. However, one needs to weigh the risks and benefits of visting/not visiting the doctor.

We doctors use our learning to decide the need for a planned procedure — the so-called elective procedures. Can we afford to sideline the “elective cases” during the pandemic? Why is it important to withhold elective/planned surgeries/procedures? Unlike any other profession, we doctors deal with humanity at its most vulnerable. It is not just science, but empathy and trust between the doctor and patient that forms the keystone of this scenario.

So why is it important to say no to a surgery/procedure to a patient who needs it, but who is not in immediate danger?The learning from the West and the East has been clear, with hospitals becoming the major source point of infection spread. The lockdown is the biggest social experiment we have undertaken since the partition of India. The current situation warrants a doctor to use his utmost clinical judgement to reschedule the procedure to break the chain, by reducing the contacts of the vulnerable ones. It is also important to reduce the occupancy of patients beds, ventilators and other resources, which will become necessary if a potential need arises.

Clear directions from the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) and PMO to postpone all elective procedures for a month, is a step taken to handle pandemic transmission. But the buck doesn’t stop there — the recent development of implementing a tele-health policy through the recently formed board of governors (replacing the MCI) is a disruption in itself. With high speed internet-enabled smartphones in most hands, tele-consultations for all non-emergency visits is just a click away. What was thought as a tool to reach the unreachable sectors of the society has taken a different avatar now, enabling us to reach everyone.

It is often quoted “chaos is the ladder of opportunity”. This pandemic brings forth a lot of fundamental thinking and action in all sectors of society. A society where public health takes precedence over economy, where family takes precedence over self indulgence, where priorities and culture of the organisation towards its employees matter more than the take-home packages or bonuses.

All it requires for us to do is to sit back and relax, as that’s the strongest weapon to fight the pandemic, and I am sure we will lead by example.

Police stress on ‘stay-at-home’ message with novel methods

Persons found loitering made to do squats, promise to obey the law

01/04/2020, R. SIVARAMAN,CHENNAI

Lesson learnt: Over 15 persons who violated the prohibitory orders were made to do squats in Puzhal.Special Correspondent

As people continue defying the lockdown and loiter on roads without reason, police personnel in the city have resorted to novel methods to make people realise the importance of staying indoors.

At 1.30 p.m. on Monday, the scene on Puzhal Camp road resembled a gym — over 15 persons, lined up under the scorching sun, were made to do half-squats by a woman sub-inspector.

She first demonstrated how to do the exercise. The violators were then made to follow the drill, over the next 20 minutes.

Jayanthi, a sub-inspector of police, said: “People don’t understand the seriousness of a lockdown. They just saunter around. Some of them said that they came out to visit their friends. We have to effectively implement law and order by adopting these methods.”

At Ennore Wimco Nagar, the police caught people on the road and made them do squats.

They were also made to repeat: “Hereafter, we will not step out anywhere. We will obey the orders of the government.”

Another group at the Maduvoyal police station was made to repeat, “We will cooperate with the police and government authorities. We will wear masks.”

Red Hills Inspector P. Jawahar asked people, gathered on the roadside, to stand in lines, holding placards stating that they would obey the prohibitory orders.

A police officer told the violators, “You are all well-educated and should realise your mistake. You should go and tell people in your neighbourhood that they must not step out unnecessarily, when a lockdown is in place, and that the disease may spread faster if people keep coming out.”

Jumping quarantine

The police also pulled up a person from the crowd who had returned from a foreign country recently and was told to stay under home quarantine.

A police officer asked him, “Why you are coming out, sir? You have been to foreign countries where you obeyed the law. But here, you don’t. You are educated. So why did you come out, and that too without wearing a mask?”

He was whisked away to the police station and a case was booked against him for violating the law.

Assistant Commissioner, Flower Bazaar, Lakshmanan, made violators read out a statement that they would not come out unnecessarily hereafter, during lockdown.

‘Facilitate pensioners to contribute towards fund’

01/04/2020, CHENNAI

The T.N. Retired College Teachers’ Association has appealed to the government to facilitate members of their association to donate a day’s pension to the Chief Minister’s Public Relief Fund to aid the fight against COVID-19. Nearly 4,500 members of the association have decided to pitch in.