Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu on Friday said that struggle against the Centre’s farm laws is also a struggle for honour, respect and dignity.
Sidhu was addressing farmers at Vallah Sabzi Mandi in Amritsar on Friday.
“The Centre owes thousands of crores of rupees to Punjab. Entire Punjab stands united in our struggle against the centre’s farm laws. It is also a struggle for our honour, respect and dignity,” Sidhu said.
The Congress leader said, “Some people are trying to divert your attention from real issues. The Centre’s agenda is clear from its black laws. The remaining agenda was fulfilled through punishment for stubble burning, Electricity Amendment Bill and no subsidies for farmers.”
Farmers in Punjab have been protesting against the three agriculture laws — The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 — since they were passed by the Parliament.
Recently, Punjab Assembly had passed a resolution rejecting three farm laws enacted by the central government with Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh later leading a delegation to Governor VP Singh Badnore urging him to give his assent to three new bills by the assembly. (ANI)
In a bid to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic from worsening due to increased air pollution, the Delhi government has banned all types of firecrackers from November 7 to 30, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Friday.
“The ban on crackers has been imposed in view of air pollution. This time around, there is pollution and COVID-19. When firecrackers are burst on Diwali, people are unable to breathe properly for around 3-4 hours late at night due to air pollution,” Jain told reporters here.
Responding to whether ‘green cracker’ will be included in the ban, Jain said that there is a pandemic spreading around the globe and people should avoid refrain from bursting crackers.
“There is a pandemic across the country. People have not seen such a thing in their entire lifetime. People should understand and refrain from bursting crackers. Everyone should conduct poojas and offer prayers at their homes. The Laxmi pooja by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be broadcasted live. Everyone can join him in their homes,” Jain said.
“Pollution and COVID-19 are dangerous in and of themselves. To protect yourself from both, people should ensure not to leave their houses without a face mask… In the third wave of the COVID-19, positive cases are increasing. At present 7,231 COVID beds are occupied in Delhi and 8,572 are still available,” he added.
Jain said that the number of COVID-19 beds in Delhi government hospitals will be increased and said that private hospitals will be asked to do the same.
Speaking about the approaching winters and the arrangement made by the Delhi government to provide shelter homes to the needy, Jain said, “Shelter homes are being prepared and COVID-19 guidelines will be kept in mind while doing so. We are increasing the size of the shelter homes in view of the pandemic and will only fill the tents to half its capacity in view of COVID-19.” (ANI)
Deepanshu Saini, 23, project manager of Parivartan, The Change, an NGO working for the education of poor children, recounts how Covid-19 affected their programmes and how they dealt with the challenges
As the Covid-19 pandemic is showing no signs of slowing down, many parents are anxious if an entire academic session of their children will be wasted. Now, spare a thought for the school children from the underprivileged background. Losing one academic year carries the risk of these children dropping out for good. It is one thing to get a poor child admitted to school, under right to education law, but it is more important is that his education is sustained till a respectable level.
This is where Parivartan, The Change, an NGO I work for, steps in. We prepare children in a way that they are admitted to government-run schools under RTE and continue to shine in studies thereto. With the help of our team-members, I have been running a child education programme called Pa8shaala since 2017, two years after our NGO was founded.
This
programme is aimed at mainstreaming those poor children who show promise in
learning. The selection is made through camps in several localities, which can
be attended by any child, irrespective of their age and gender. Those who turn
up consistently and are keen to learn are mainstreamed. We get them admitted to
local government schools.
The
current outreach of Pa8shaala is around 18,000 children across cities. In
Moradabad (UP), which is my work area, 535 students have so far been chosen to
be mainstreamed from across 10 branches and we have managed to get 320 students
admitted to schools so far. Here we are talking of the poorest of the poor
children, who are vulnerable to low-grade labour and drug abuse.
However, the Covid-19 outbreak disrupted our schedule. Moradabad was declared a hot-spot which restricted our movement and interactions with the children. For the first four months, we couldn’t do much except keeping the children motivated over short calls and making sure that they revised what they had studied earlier.
We
surveyed slums to see if we could conduct online classes but most households
did not have smartphones. Besides, many children were helping their parents
with household chores and keeping their premises clean. Social distancing can
be a challenge in a small town slum.
As soon as the lockdown was relaxed, our team members resumed the education programme all over again. Documentation of the children for schools admissions was the most difficult part. Government offices had only selective staff coming in as did the pragya kendras where Aadhar cards are made and updated. Many of the ward councillors were either unwilling to work or uncooperative, possibly due to fear of contagion.
Team members and beneficiaries of Parivartan, The Change
In
many schools, officials suffered from a presumption that slum children drop out
in the first academic year itself. At one such school, we were even asked to file
an affidavit that these children would not drop out of school. With the courts not
functioning to capacity, these requirements burdened us further. Many migrant
labourers had come back from big cities during the pandemic and their children
were anxious to get admission in schools.
Normally, we provide study kits as part of the Pa8shaala programme but during pandemic we also provided these children and their families with dry ration, daily use items and hygiene products. I hope people understand the importance of education and worked collectively to ensure that every child gets formally educated. Just because a child’s parents decided to move from Mumbai to Moradabad during the pandemic doesn’t mean their education should suffer.
Air quality in the national capital continued to deteriorate and the Air Quality Index (AQI) has been classified as ‘severe’ on Friday. According to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), the overall air quality recorded at 486 in Delhi.
As per Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the AQI recorded at 422 in Anand Vihar, 407 in RK Puram, 421 in Dwarka’s Sector 8 and 430 in Bawana, all were reported in ‘Severe category’. In Haryana’s Gurugram, air quality was recorded in ‘very poor’ category, in the morning, according to CPCB.
“People have started bursting firecrackers before the festival of Diwali, we are having breathing problem because of it,” said a local in Gurugram.
“Pollution is increasing day by day, yesterday the situation was really serious, and people are burning garbage and bursting firecrackers,” said another local in Gurugram.
An AQI between 0-50 is marked good, 51-100 is satisfactory, 101-200 is moderate, 201-300 is poor, 301-400 is very poor and 401-500 is considered severe. According to experts, the severe category affects the health of people and seriously impacts those with existing diseases. (ANI)
India’s COVID-19 tally crossed the 84-lakh mark after 47,638 new infections were reported in the past 24 hours, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s data on Friday.
The coronavirus cases in the country continue to decline further but the overall infections reached 84,11,724 including 5,20,773 active cases.
Total cured cases reached 77,65,966 with 54,157 new discharges in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, with 670 new deaths, the toll mounted to 1,24,985 overall.
Maharashtra reported 1,07,358 active cases, 15,51,282 discharges and 44,804 deaths so far. While Karnataka reported 33,114 active cases, 7,94,503 discharges and 11,312 death so far due to the disease. A total of 38,729 active cases, 3,71,155 discharges and 6,769 deaths were recorded in the national capital till Thursday.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a total of 11,54,29,095 samples have been tested for coronavirus till November 5, of these, 12,20,711 samples were tested yesterday.
Ten State and Union Territories accounted for 78.2 per cent of total active cases in the country, according to the Health Ministry. (ANI)
Furniture made out of paddy stubble displayed at Punjab Agriculture University here has become a centre of attraction for those visiting the varsity.
“Making furniture out of stubble is an alternative to burning it. It is also pocket friendly,” said Anil Sharma, Head of Communication Department, Punjab Agriculture University.
“This furniture can be used in different patterns like a sofa or bed. People have been accusing each other of stubble burning and pollution but we had to come up with a solution. The furniture was made at negligible cost. We have used 20 stubble bales for it,” he added.
The prudent use of paddy stubble has been showcased amid the rise in pollution and incidents of stubble burning across the state.
“We have compressed 25-30 kgs of stubble,” said Sharma.
The stubble bales were first wrapped with polythene, covered with a net and other material. (ANI)
The Chinese staff recruited by the Punjab Mass Transit Authority for Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) project is getting huge salaries in comparison to their Pakistani employees, The News International reported.
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,” the report said.
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.
While a Chinese official posted to the DGM rank gets 83,000 CNY per month, equivalent to more than Rs 1.9 million per month, Pakistani official Umer Chishti, who holds the position of DGM Equipment and Maintenance, receive merely Rs 625,000 per month.
The News further reported that as many as 43 people of Chinese origin were recruited on the slots of technicians/train operators and each person is being paid 47,500 CNY, equal to over Rs 1.13 million.However, a locally recruited train operator/train crew gets only Rs 60,000.
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 keeping in view the salary of their Chinese counterparts.
Meanwhile, Uzair Shah, General Manager (operations) of Punjab Mass Transit Authority, has been quoted as saying that the morale of Pakistanis working at OLMT would not be down if they compared their salaries with their local counterparts. He added that the comparison in salaries between the Chinese and Pakistani employees cannot be made. (ANI)
US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Thursday (local time) stated that there was no doubt that when the vote count of the US Presidential polls was finished, he and Senator Kamala Harris would be declared the winners.
While delivering a statement from Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said: “The Senator and I continue to feel very good about where things stand. We have no doubt that when the count is finished, Senator Harris and I will be declared the winners. So I ask all people to stay calm. The process is working, the count is being completed and we will know very soon. So thank you all for your patience but we’ve got to count the votes.”
The former Vice President also emphasised that every vote must be counted in order to confirm a winner in the Presidential race, and asked people to be patient.
“In America, the vote is sacred. It has helped the people of this nation to express their will, and it is the will of the voters, no one, not anything else, that chooses the President of the USA. So each ballot must be counted and that is what we are going to see going through now, and that is how it should be,” he said.
He mentioned that while democracy is sometimes messy and sometimes it requires a little patience, but that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years with a system of governance that has been the ‘envy of the world’.
In his statement, Biden also acknowledged the COVID-19 pandemic and the lives lost due to the virus, after attending a briefing on the pandemic.
“Cases are on the rise nationwide and we are nearing 240,000 deaths due to COVID-19. Our hearts go out to each and everyone who has lost a loved one to this terrible disease,” he said.
According to CNN, Biden has a 40-point lead over US President Donald Trump in electoral votes as of 4 pm ET (2:30 am IST). (ANI)
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Hasan Khan Niazi and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) Minister Ali Amin Gundapuri were surrounded by the residents of Gilgit-Baltistan during their visit to the region who shouted slogans like “We will never accept Pakistani involvement in our area”.
“We will never accept Pakistani involvement in our area. Get out from here,” the locals said while surrounding the Pakistan PM and PoK Minister.
On November 1, Khan had announced the granting of provisional-provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan despite the ongoing protests against the Pakistan government over its decision to change the status of Gilgit-Baltistan.
Following this decision, the residents of Gilgit-Baltistan have said that they will never accept Pakistan’s involvement in their region.
Gilgit-Baltistan residents are up in arms against Islamabad’s decision to integrate the illegally occupied region with the rest of Pakistan.
In the run-up to the assembly elections in this so-called autonomous region, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan recently announced that the region will become a provisional province of Pakistan–a declaration that has drawn massive condemnation.
Activists wonder how an occupying state which has no locus standi over the region can take a call of subsuming it with the rest of Pakistan.
Earlier known as Northern Areas, Gilgit-Baltistan has been governed by the “Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order of 2009”, which established an electoral framework. Elections have been held in the region under the order that provides for limited autonomy.
The people accuse Pakistan of systematically exploiting resources of the region and not sharing the dividends with them.
Any resistance they say meets brutal government reprisal with activists and leaders hounded, arrested and tortured. (ANI)
Higher educational institutions can restart physical classes only with 50 per cent attendance in areas outside containment zones, as per directions by the respective governments, said the University Grants Commission (UGC) on Thursday.
It issued guidelines for the reopening of university and college campuses after several months of closure due to the COVID-19 lockdown.
As per a statement, the guidelines may be adopted by institutions outside containment zones, as per the local conditions and directives of the respective government authorities.
For centrally funded higher education institutions, the head of the institution should satisfy themselves regarding the feasibility of the opening of physical classes and decide accordingly.
For all other higher educational institutions, including colleges and universities, the opening of physical classes is to be done as per the decision of the respective governments.
According to the guidelines, the universities and colleges are allowed to open with activities where social distancing can be adhered to, and face masks and other protective measures must be in place.
Final year students may also be allowed to join for academic and placement purposes.
For programmes, other than research and postgraduate courses in science and technology, online and distance learning shall continue to be the preferred mode of teaching, but students will be allowed to visit respective departments in small numbers for consultation with faculty after seeking appointments.
The UGC guidelines added hostels may be opened only in cases where it is necessary and sharing of rooms will not be allowed. Symptomatic students will not be permitted to stay under any circumstances.
Before opening, the central or concerned state government must declare the area safe for opening. (ANI)
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