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Big Story
The Centre has warned that five states -- Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh -- are at risk of falling short of ICU beds and ventilators in the next two months. Projections show that Delhi may already have run out of ICU beds on June 3, will run out of ventilators on June 12, and isolation beds with oxygen on June 25.
From the Front Page
At the height of the faceoff between Indian and Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh in May, both sides advanced troops from their usual positions across the entire length of the Line of Actual Control. Since the process for troops to step back will take time and has to be verified on the ground by each side, both Delhi and Beijing have been careful with their choice of words, not calling it disengagement.
A US report on religious freedom in India has taken into account the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and Article 370 -- two issues that Delhi has always maintained are internal matters. The report also talks about “religiously inspired mob violence, lynching and communal violence”, and says that “some officials of Hindu-majority parties, including from the BJP, made inflammatory public remarks”.
The English spelling of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu's second largest city, has been changed to ‘Koyampuththoor’. The spellings of 1,017 other cities and places will also be amended or given a new official name as per Tamil pronunciation. The impact of the phonetics makeover will not only be expensive, but laborious too.
Beyond Covid-19
IIT-Madras, IISc-Bangalore and IIT-Delhi emerged as the country’s top three institutions for the second year in a row in the NIRF rankings announced by the HRD Ministry. And Jamia Millia Islamia, which was at the centre of the student pushback against the Union government this year, broke into the top 10 universities of the country. While JNU maintained its position as the second-best university in the country.
“When I would tell them I am from Nizamuddin, they would tell me to wait for at least two months. They were scared I would spread the virus." Even as the country limps back to normalcy, for the 20,000 residents of this basti in the national capital, the stigma attached to Covid-19 is robbing them of job opportunities.
Former West Indies cricketer Michael Holding writes on racism: “There is unfair profiling and targeting of black people in England as well but at least you don’t end up dead there, the likely outcome in America. It’s institutionalised racism in the US that makes them feel they are different.”
A Dalit teen was shot dead, while he was asleep, by his neighbour allegedly for entering the village temple in UP’s Amroha district. However, police and the accused’s family maintain that the killing was linked to an altercation over Rs 5,000 which the victim owed.
And Finally… A 21-year-old man from Delhi, who tested positive for Covid-19, has kept Goa Police on their toes. While entering the state, he declared a fake address that has led the cops to search several bars in a fish market. And compounding the problem, he is already a “missing person” in Delhi Police records. 🔊 In today’s episode of Three Things Podcast, we discuss how the major gas leak and subsequent fire broke out in Assam, the damage it is doing to the area around it and whether it could have been avoided. Until tomorrow, Leela Prasad and Liu Chuen Chen |
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