NEWS

In the time of Covid and public health emergency, health officials in Palwal district of Haryana are scrambling to diagnose the reason for the death of at least seven children, all aged below 14, within three weeks in a village.

Such is the panic in Chilli village, over 20 km from Palwal, that health officials are camping in a panchayat house to investigate the cause of death – it is still unclear and the reasons being cited, by residents of the village and health officials, range from dengue to pneumonia, gastroenteritis to vector-borne diseases owing to lack of sanitation.

While residents claim the deaths are the result of a dengue outbreak, authorities say their team, comprising an epidemiologist, a science officer and health inspectors, is “studying the pattern”, but is yet to find a link. Authorities say there is a possibility that the deaths could be because of multiple illnesses arising due to poor sanitation in the village. Officials say they have counted seven deaths over the last 20 days during their door-to-door survey. The village residents and the sarpanch say at least nine children have died.

In a near-unanimous motion, the Tamil Nadu assembly on Monday passed a bill for admission to medical courses only on the basis of Class XII marks in board exams. The bill also provides for 7.5% horizontal reservation in medical courses for students of government schools.

“Admissions to medical education courses are traceable to Entry 25 of List III, Schedule VII of the Constitution. Therefore, the state government is competent to regulate the same. So, I am moving this bill,” CM K Stalin said, as BJP MLAs walked out in protest. The bill seeks to circumvent Neet and have only Class XII marks as criterion for admissions to MBBS, BDS & homeopathy courses.

Jharkhand recorded 322 human deaths and 88 animal deaths due to lightning strikes in 2020-21 – the highest in the last three financial years – according to data released in the state Assembly in a response to a question by a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MLA Sudivya Kumar.

This is the first time that the state has released such specific data. Earlier, the Climate Resilient Observing Systems Promotion Council (CROPC), a non-profit organisation that works closely with India Meteorological Department (IMD), released an all-India report in December 20202, which stated that in Jharkhand in 2018-19 and 2019-2020, 118 and 172 people died respectively.

To MLA Kumar's query on the number of lightning deaths and whether lightning rods have been installed in all districts, Disaster Management Minister Banna Gupta responded in writing, “332 and 882 animals died in 2020-21…There is no provision for installing lightning rods through State Disaster Response Fund as per Central government’s criteria.”

On September 7, six days after the death of veteran separatist leader and Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Geelani at his home in Srinagar, his protege Masarat Alam Bhat succeeded him. The 50-year-old staunch Pakistan supporter currently lodged in Tihar jail for terror funding has spent more than two decades of his life in jails. But his appointment, at a time when separatist outfits in the Valley have been left redundant by the BJP-led Union government's zero tolerance against separatism, is seen as an attempt to marginalise the moderate voices such as Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of his faction of the Hurriyat.

Born in Zaindar Mohalla in Srinagar's downtown, the fiery orator is an alumnus of the prestigious missionary school, Tyndale Biscoe, in Srinagar. In 2010, when Kashmir rose up against the killing of teenager Tufail Mattoo, he became the vanguard of the agitation issuing protest and shutdown calendars while in hiding. He was arrested by the J&K Police from Srinagar's outskirts and booked under the Public Safety Act, a controversial law that allows detention of a person without bail up to six months. After the PDP-BJP government led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed came to power in J&K, he was released briefly in 2015 but was re-arrested a month later.