CURRENT AFFAIRS
20 April 2021
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) From May 1, everyone over 18 years eligible for Covid-19 vaccination.
Everyone above the age of 18 in India would be eligible for Covid-19 vaccination from May 1, 2021. The announcement came following a meeting on Monday chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with doctors and members of the pharma industry. The government has said that procurement, eligibility, and administration of vaccines are being made flexible in Phase 3 of the world’s largest vaccination drive. Vaccine manufacturers have been incentivised to further scale up production, and attract new national and international players. Vaccine manufacturers have also been empowered to release up to 50% of their supply to State government and in the open market at pre-declared prices. States have been empowered to procure additional vaccine doses directly from manufacturers. The second dose for priority groups healthcare and frontline workers, population above 45 years wherever it is due will get priority, the government added.
B) Delhi to be under six-day ‘total curfew’ from April 19 midnight to April 26 5 a.m.
The national capital would be placed under a six-day ‘total curfew’ starting Monday night till early next Monday morning, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced today. The announcement came after Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Anil Baijal and Kejriwal met to discuss the Covid-19 situation in the city where both agreed that the city’s health system had reached its limit. According to Kejriwal, an estimated 23,500 new cases had surfaced in Delhi over the last 24 hours. The curfew will be in place between 10 p.m. on Monday night till 5 a.m. next Monday, April 26. According to the government, essential service providers such as doctors, police personnel, the media, and students going for exams will be allowed on the production of ID cards or admit cards. An e-pass will be required for movement by grocery shop employees, food and e-commerce delivery personnel. Religious places will be allowed to open but not allowed to have visitors. Those heading to weddings will be allowed to, given the production of an invitation card. The Delhi Metro and public buses will only cater up to 50% of their total capacity; malls, gyms, cinemas will be shut and no religious, political or social gatherings will be allowed.
C) But Central Vista-related construction work will continue during lockdown.
Construction of the new Parliament building under the Central Vista redevelopment project would continue during the lockdown announced by the Delhi government on Monday with those workers who are staying on site, government sources have confirmed. The new building, which is being built adjacent to the existing Parliament House, is scheduled to be completed by November 2022. While the Delhi government banned construction during the lockdown from Monday 10pm to April 26 5am, projects where workers are residing on-site would be allowed. Since some workers engaged for the project are on-site, the construction would continue to the extent possible, said a Central Public Works Department official. Earlier, the workers engaged for the project had been staying at a camp set up at Sarai Kale Khan and commuting by Metro and buses to the site in Lutyens’ Delhi. Work is continuing. All workers are staying on site and permissions for construction have been granted, said a spokesperson of Tata Projects Ltd., which is constructing the new Parliament building.
D) Allahabad HC orders week-long lockdown in Lucknow and other cities; U.P. govt refuses to impose it.
Amid a surge in coronavirus cases, the Allahabad High Court on Monday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to impose a week-long lockdown in Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur Nagar, Gorakhpur and Allahabad. A two-judge bench comprising justices Siddhartha Varma and Ajit Kumar passed the order on a PIL on the condition of quarantine centres in the State and treatment of coronavirus patients. They are of the considered view that in given scenario of present time if people are restrained from going outside their homes for a week in the first instance, the current chain of spread of COVID infection can be broken and this will also give some respite to the frontline medical and health workers, the Bench observed. It said, Accordingly, they are passing the directions in respect of cities of Prayagraj (Allahabad), Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur Nagar and Gorakhpur and they direct the government to strictly enforce them forthwith. All establishments be it government or private, except financial institutions and financial departments, medical and health services, industrial and scientific establishments, essential services including municipal functions, and public transport, shall remain closed till 26th April, 2021. The judiciary will, however, function on its own discretion, the Bench said. The state, however, said that it would not impose a complete lockdown as directed by the court but would implement other restrictions to curb the spread of infections.
E) No difference in mortality in Covid-19 ‘first’ and ‘second wave’: ICMR.
There was no difference in mortality among Covid-19 patients in the first and second wave, said leading doctors in charge of India’s national COVID management strategy. There was a relative increase in instances of those manifesting shortness of breath as a symptom of the infection but those over 60 as in the first wave continued to be most at risk from dying. A marginally higher proportion of patients younger than 20 years were present in the second wave (5.8%) compared to the first (4.2%). In the first wave, 25.5% of the patients were 20-40 years old compared to 23.7% in the ongoing second wave. Citing data from a section of hospitalised patients from the first and second wave, Director-General, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Dr. Balram Bhargava said 47% of symptomatic patients presented ‘shortness of breath’ in the second wave (March-April 2021) compared to 41% in the first wave (Sept.-Nov.’20). In all other symptoms associated with Covid-19 — ‘fast breathing,’ cough, chills, joint pain, fatigue — there was a greater proportion who manifested these symptoms in the first wave than in the ongoing second wave. A key caveat to the data was that for the first wave analysis, 6,642 patients were analysed, and in the second wave, only 1,405 were analysed. Of 6, 650 admitted patients from September-November last year, 9.6% succumbed whereas from March-April, 9.7% of a group of 351 died from the virus. There was no difference in the proportion of patients who required mechanical ventilation in the first and second waves, Dr. Bhargava said. The second wave apart from a steep rise in coronavirus cases has been characterised by unprecedented demand for medical-grade oxygen, leading to severe shortages. Dr. Bhargava said the sudden surge may have triggered panic and a demand for more oxygen. This is data from hospital settings and so we don’t yet know what’s triggering the demand from outside these settings, he said at an online meeting. Dr. V.K. Paul, who chairs the empowered group on vaccinations and COVID management (NEGVAC), said there was no difference in mortality, in the first and second wave, in those 40 and under. There is no overarching extra/ excess risk of younger becoming COVID positive, he said.
F) ‘Crime against humanity’: Priyanka accuses Fadnavis of hoarding Remdesivir.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra today accused former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of hoarding Remdesivir, saying a BJP leader holding on to the drug at a time when people are scrambling to arrange it is a crime against humanity. Taking to Twitter, the Congress general secretary tagged a video of top Maharashtra BJP leaders, including Fadnavis, arguing with police officials after the Mumbai Police questioned a pharma company director following information that thousands of vials of the Remdesivir drug, considered critical in Covid-19 treatment, were to be flown out of the country. At a time when people from every corner of the country are requesting for being provided with Remdesivir, and many are struggling to procure a bottle of Remdesivir to save their lives, a BJP leader, who was in responsible position, hoarding Remdesivir is a crime against humanity, Vadra said in a tweet in Hindi. The Mumbai Police on April 18 said they had information that the Remdesivir stock was going to be flown abroad as air cargo, despite a ban on the export of the drug. While Fadnavis claimed the director was picked up because the BJP managed to get permissions in place for the supply of the drug to Maharashtra, activist Saket Gokhale wondered how did a private individual like Fadnavis procure Remdesivir stock from Gujarat when the sale is allowed only to the government. On learning that the pharma company director was being quizzed, Fadnavis and another State BJP leader Pravin Darekar rushed to the police station.
G) Mamata urges EC with ‘folded hands’ to curtail Bengal poll schedule amid Covid-19 surge.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday urged the Election Commission (EC) to re-consider its decision to stick to the original poll schedule, as she stressed that wrapping up the last three phases of polls on a single day or at least in two days would check the spread of Covid-19 to a certain extent, PTI reported. Indicating that the EC may have decided against clubbing the remaining phases at the behest of the BJP, Banerjee, while addressing her rally here in Uttar Dinajpur, requested the poll panel to prioritise public health. With folded hands, he request the EC to hold the next three phases on a single day. If not one day, conduct it in two days and save one day, she said.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) U.K. PM Boris Johnson calls off trip to India in view of worsening Covid-19 situation.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday cancelled his visit to India, due on April 25-26, in view of the prevailing COVID situation, both governments announced. The decision was taken after weeks of discussions over how to proceed with the visit despite the pandemic, and last week officials had said he would cut short the duration and limit his travel to Delhi. With no let-up in the surge of cases in India, however, officials in London and Delhi decided by mutual agreement to call off the trip. He do think it’s only sensible to postpone, given what’s happened in India, the shape of the pandemic there, Johnson told reporters, adding that while it will be ‘frustrating’ to hold the summit via video conference, he hoped to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi when circumstances allow, and expressed massive amounts of sympathy for India during the crisis. On Sunday, British Opposition parliamentarians had called on Johnson to cancel his trip in view of reports of the double mutant strain originating in India. Johnson said that a decision on whether to include India in the ‘red list’ of countries now, from which returnees must quarantine at a hotel for 10 days, would be taken by the UK Health Security Agency.
B) Greens name Baerbock as candidate to succeed Merkel.
Germany’s Green party on Monday named its co-chair Annalena Baerbock as their candidate to succeed Angela Merkel, throwing down the gauntlet to the Chancellor’s conservatives who were locked in increasingly vicious infighting for her Both of us want the job, but in the end, only one can do it. So today is the moment to say that the Greens’ first Chancellor candidate will be Annalena Baerbock, said the party’s joint cochairman Robert Habeck. Ms. Baerbock, 40, is the first Chancellor candidate ever nominated by the Greens. Yet with the party polling in second place behind Ms. Merkel’s divided conservatives, the Greens now have a chance of becoming the biggest party and taking the chancellery. Today, we begin a new chapter for our party and if we do well for our country, she said. A former trampolining ace who studied international law at the London School of Economics, she has never held a government role. As a teenager, she took part in trampoline competitions, winning many medals. The sport taught her to be brave, she has said. But the mother oftwo and trained lawyer has surged in popularity, using the media spotlight on the pandemic to criticise the government for not prioritising children during the crisis, while laying out her own proposals.
C) NASA Mars helicopter makes first flight on another planet.
NASA successfully flew its tiny helicopter Ingenuity on Mars early on Monday, the first powered flight on another planet and a feat a top engineer called our Wright brothers’ moment. At 3:34 a.m. Eastern Time (0734 GMT), the 1.8 kg rotorcraft lifted off, hovered 10 feet above the Martian surface, then came back to rest after 39.1 seconds. Data and images from the autonomous flight were transmitted 278 million km back to Earth where they were received by NASA’s array of ground antennas and processed more than three hours later. Engineers were tensely watching their screens at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where the mission had been designed and planned for the past six years. They broke into applause as one of them read off a checklist of tasks Ingenuity had achieved and concluded: Ingenuity has performed its first flight the first flight of a powered aircraft on another planet. Ingenuity quickly sent back a black-and-white image from its downward pointing navigation camera, showing its bug-like shadow cast on the surface. Then came a choppy colour video from the Perseverance rover showing Ingenuity on the ground, in flight. The first powered flight on Earth was achieved by the Wright brothers in 1903 in North Carolina. A piece of fabric from that plane has been tucked inside Ingenuity in honour of that feat.
