Month: November 2020

National Conference (NC) vice-president Omar Abdullah on Thursday hit out at the Centre over the ensuing District Development Council (DDC) elections in Jammu and Kashmir, stating that “the poll is fast becoming a farce and also exposes the hollow claims of the Centre and the improved security situation in Union Territory”.

“The election is fast becoming a farce and also exposes the hollow claims of both the Centre and state about the improved security situation in Jammu and Kashmir,” Abdullah tweeted.

The DDC elections will be conducted in Jammu and Kashmir in eight phases between November 28 and December 19, and the counting of votes will take place on December 22.

On Wednesday, Abdullah had questioned the rationale behind holding DDC polls in Jammu and Kashmir as he claimed candidates were being stopped from campaigning on security grounds.

He had alleged non-BJP candidates in fray for the elections were stopped from campaigning, while the Jammu and Kashmir administration was going out of its way to help the BJP.

“What sort of elections are being held in J-K where candidates are being stopped from campaigning? Is this the safe, terror-free J-K the Home Minister was tweeting about yesterday,” he had said in a tweet.

“The J-K administration is going out of its way to help the BJP and it is recently created king’s party by locking up candidates opposed to the BJP, using security as an excuse. If the security situation isn’t conducive to campaigning what was the need to announce elections,” he had asked in another tweet.

On November 17, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said that the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration wants foreign forces to intervene in Jammu and Kashmir and asserted that Indian people will no longer tolerate an “unholy global gathbandhan” against national interest.

“The Gupkar Gang is going global! They want foreign forces to intervene in Jammu and Kashmir. The Gupkar Gang also insults India’s Tricolour. Do Sonia Ji and Rahul Ji support such moves of the Gupkar Gang? They should make their stand crystal clear to the people of India,” Shah tweeted.

Parties including the National Conference, PDP, Peoples Conference and CPI(M), formed the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration and are fighting the maiden DDC elections together. (ANI)

Amid China’s growing belligerence, negative sentiment among Japanese people toward Beijing has increased, according to an opinion poll.

A survey conducted by a non-profit organisation in September and October showed that 54.1 per cent of people in Japan felt that bilateral ties are bad or relatively bad, while 22.6 per cent in China felt the same, NHK reported.

Besides this, nearly 90 per cent of Japanese people who were surveyed, said they have an unfavourable or relatively unfavourable view of China, while 52.9 per cent in China said the same of Tokyo.

NHK reported an official at Genron NPO saying that the survey shows concern among Japanese respondents about China’s aggressiveness in the South and East China seas, adding that Beijing may be finding the need for stronger ties with Japan amid the tensions with the US.

The survey, which was conducted on November 17, found that an increasing number of Chinese view the bilateral relationship with Japan as important amid Beijing’s growing tensions between the US on several issues including the Hong Kong security law, trade, and the coronavirus pandemic.

Over the significance of bilateral ties, 64.2 per cent of Japanese people said they are important or relatively important, which has comes down 8.5 percentage points from a year before.

Meanwhile, in China, 74.7 per cent of respondents described the bilateral ties as important or relatively important, up 7.7 percentage points.

On the ongoing conflict between China and the United States, 54.8 per cent in Japan said both countries are responsible, while a percentage of 86.2 in China blamed the US.

The joint survey was conducted by the China International Publishing Group and the Japanese non-profit group, Genron NPO, in which around 2,600 people in the two countries responded. (ANI)

Ahead of the West Benal Assembly elections, the Congress party and Left parties will jointly organise programmes in every block of the districts in the state from November 23 onwards.

This was decided in the “Congress-Left Alliance Meeting”, which was held on Tuesday at Kranti Press.

“The main discussion of the meeting was how to maximise the projection of Congress-Left Alliance in the state. The chemistry of the alliance is potent and this should be carried deep down into every booth in Bengal to give the people of Bengal an alternative option from TMC (Trinamool Congress) and BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and the alliance is confident that it will be a game changer in Bengal,” said West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee in a statement.

“It has been unanimously decided that Congress and Left shall jointly organise programmes in every block from 23rd November onwards and all pre-announced programmes of Congress and Left will continue before that,” it added.

The approach of the alliance to firm up its position in Bengal is bottoms up and not a top down approach.

The party workers have mentally accepted the alliance and its time to make the alliance visible and acceptable to the people of Bengal, the Congress party said. (ANI)

American drug giant Pfizer on Wednesday said that final results from the late-stage trial of its coronavirus vaccine was found to be 95 per cent effective and had no serious side effects on older people.

The findings are based on two doses given to more than 41,000 people around the world, said the US drugmaker adding that it would apply for emergency US authorisation soon, raising hopes that a working vaccine could soon become a reality.

This comes after Pfizer and its partner German biotechnology firm BioNTech had last week published data that their vaccine offered 90 per cent protection from the infection as compared to placebo saline shot.

The findings follows the announcement by US biotech company Moderna, which had on Monday released preliminary data from late-stage clinical trials for its vaccine, which it said proved to be 94.5 per cent effective.

In a statement today, Pfizer and BioNTech said they expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.

The vaccine prevented mild and severe forms of Covid and it was 94 percent effective in older adults, who are more vulnerable to developing severe Covid-19 and who do not respond strongly to some types of vaccines.

The findings were based on evaluating 170 cases of Covid-10 in volunteers, with just eight in the group given the vaccine and the remaining being administered a placebo shot of saltwater.

Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chief executive, said in a statement, “The study results mark an important step in this historic eight-month journey to bring forward a vaccine capable of helping to end this devastating pandemic.”

According to a statement by Pfizer, “the efficacy was consistent across age, gender, race and ethnicity demographic. The observed efficacy in adults over 65 years of age was over 94 per cent.”

The most common serious adverse event was fatigue, with 3.7 per cent of volunteers reporting tiredness after they took the second dose. Two per cent of volunteers reported a headache after the second dose. Older adults reported fewer and milder side effects

Besides, Pfizer said it was ready to submit to the FDA two months of safety data that the agency had recommended. The FDA will review the data and ask an outside panel of vaccine experts to weigh in on the application, a process that could take weeks, the New York Times said.

“The vaccine must be stored at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit, colder than any other vaccine in development. Pfizer will ship the vaccine in special boxes of 1,000 to 5,000 doses that are stuffed with dry ice and equipped with GPS-enabled sensors. Pfizer’s vaccine can be stored in conventional freezers for up to five days, or in the special coolers for up to 15 days, as long the dry ice is replenished and the boxes are not opened more than twice a day. Moderna’s vaccine must also be stored in a freezer long-term, but at minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit,” NYT further stated. (ANI)

Union Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday took a jibe at Congress party over its leaders stand on Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

In a tweet, Javadekar said internal contradiction and confusion in senior leadership of Congress on RCEP has been exposed .

“Internal contradiction and confusion in senior leadership in Congress on critical issues exposed on yet another issue – RCEP. While yesterday @AnandSharmaINC termed India’s decision of not joining RCEP as unfortunate, @Jairam_Ramesh on the other hand endorsed India’s exit from RCEP,” Javadekar said in a tweet.

Terming India’s decision of not joining RCEP as unfortunate, Congress leader Anand Sharma in a tweet on Tuesday said, “India’s decision of not joining Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is unfortunate and ill advised. It is in India’s strategic and economic interests to be a part of the process of Asia-Pacific integration.”

“Withdrawal has negated years of persuasive negotiations for India to be accepted as part of RCEP. We could have negotiated safeguards to protect our interests. Keeping out of the RCEP is a backward leap,” he added.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “On Oct 21 2019 I had described India’s imminent membership of RCEP as 3rd jhatka for the economy after demonetisation & botched GST. A year later the position @INCIndia took then in demanding that the PM not drag India into an unfair RCEP, as was being planned, stands vindicated.”

In November last year, India decided not to join the RCEP agreement as its key concerns were not addressed. The key reasons behind New Delhi’s decision to remain out of the world’s biggest trade agreement include inadequate protection against import surge, insufficient differential with China, possible circumvention of rules of origin, keeping the base year as 2014 and no credible assurances on market access and non-tariff barriers.

The RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific region between the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) namely, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam and five of ASEAN’s FTA partners — Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

In May this year, China said it will welcome India back to negotiations on the RCEP at an appropriate time. (ANI)

Thousands of labourers on Wednesday staged a protest against China in Sindh’s Karachi complaining about unequal wages received by them as compared to their Chinese compatriots.

Earlier, The News International reported that the Chinese staff recruited by the Punjab Mass Transit Authority for Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) project was getting huge salaries in comparison to their Pakistani employees.

The huge disparity in the salaries is impacting the morale of the Pakistani staff, who are also given a different grade system than the Chinese. Besides, even as the Chinese staff is being paid in Yuan, the locals are getting their salaries in Pakistani rupees (PKR).

“On Wednesday, the value of 1 CNY against 1 PKR was equal to Rs 24.02. According to the data of the salaries of 93 Chinese working at the OLMT project, the Chinese staff is highly paid. If the salaries of Pakistani officials working on the same/equivalent seats are compared with those of Chinese staff, the Pakistan employees are getting mere peanuts. According to data, a Chinese-origin deputy chief executive officer/CFO/director with grade L2 is being paid 136,000 CNY per month which is equal to over Rs 3.26 million. There were three positions and all were filled with Chinese. No Pakistani was hired on this designation,” The News International stated.

Giving another example of the disparity in salaries, The News International said while 12 people of Chinese origin working on the slot of train dispatcher/train crew are getting 57,000 CNY each, equal to Rs 1.36m, the locally recruited employees working on the OLMT project are getting much lower salaries.

The Pakistani employees have demanded a salary hike from the government in accordance with the salary of their Chinese counterparts.

Meanwhile, Beijing has put a hold on projects that are part of the USD 62 billion CPEC, a flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing political unrest and foreign debt limits have resulted in a slowing of Chinese investments in Pakistan.

According to sources, Pakistan in 2017 had decided to cut the salaries of contractual employees responsible for executing various projects in the CPEC. Pakistan’s finance ministry had refused to pay the employees as per the agreement.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Planning and Development on Tuesday cleared the CPEC Authority Bill 2020 with majority despite members belonging to opposition parties strongly opposing the bill, reported The News International.

Former minister for planning Ahsan Iqbal opposed the bill and presented seven reasons for opposition to the creation of the CPEC authority. However, after conducting a heated debate, the NA panel passed the CPEC authority bill with a majority.

“Creation of CPEC authority is superfluous and unnecessary,” he said. “Ministry of planning has discharged the role diligently and effectively in the past.”

The national debt of USD 80 billion on account CPEC is bound to pose a danger to the sovereignty of Pakistan in coming years; as has been the CCP methodology in numerous under-developed countries.

The incidents clearly depict the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) core motive, which is using the CPEC project to turn Pakistan into a ‘Chinese colony’.

As Imran Khan states China as an ‘all-weather’ friend, till then, the CCP will maintain a facade of Pakistan-China friendship whilst continuing to exploit Pakistan and market outdated items from its industries to Pakistan. Pakistan’s debt burden is also being pushed up by the CCP on every available opportunity. (ANI)