United News of India
New Delhi, Apr 23: As the nation completed one-month under lockdown on Thursday to arrest the spread of novel coronavirus, as many as 34 people succumbed to the deadly virus in past 24 hours while 1,329 cases appeared, taking the tally to 21,700.

Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal in the daily briefing said the increase in the number of coronavirus cases in the country is ”more or less linear, not exponential.”

”We have been able to cut virus transmission, minimise the spread in 30 days of lockdown,” the senior health official asserted.

Environment Secretary CK Mishra said in last 30 days, the total number of tests, from over 15,000, rose to 5 lakh.

”If a rough calculation is done, it is about 33 times in 30 days. This is not enough and we need to ramp testing in this country,” he asserted.

According to the health ministry, 4,257 patients have been cured so far, bring the recovery rate to 19.89 per cent.

Due to financial strains occurring from coronavirus crisis, the government announced that it would not be able to pay additional installment of Dearness Allowance to Central government employees and Dearness Relief to Central government pensioners due from January 1, 2020.

Additional installments of DA and DR from July 1, 2020 and January 1, 2021 will also not be paid, the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

Moreover, the hike in the DA and DR by four per cent last month, have also been put on hold.

President Ram Nath Kovind approved Epidemic Diseases (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020 which makes attack, act of violence and any kind of harassment against healthcare personnel fighting Covid-19 pandemic as cognisable and non-bailable offences, with imprisonment of three months to five years.

As the lockdown severely impacting the schoolers, Union Human Resource Development released an alternative academic calendars for primary and upper primary stage (Classes VI to VIII), developed by NCERT to engage students meaningfully during their stay through educational activities.

HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal said the calendar provides guidelines to teachers on the use of various technological and social media tools available for imparting education in fun-filled, interesting ways, which can be used by learner, parents and teachers even while at home.

Union Home Ministry Joint Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava in the daily briefing said that the Ministry has asked the State governments to exempt the services of care givers and attendants to senior citizens from the lockdown norms.

Agricultural research institutes, book shops and electric fan shops have been exempted and SoPs have been released on the sign-on and sign-off of Indian seafarers to ensure that they are not replaced by seafarers from other countries, she said.

United News of India

New Delhi, Apr 23: The world leaders have seen the number of their followers grow exponentially in March 2020, as citizens are looking for guidance during the Novel Coronavirus pandemic.

Among all leaders worldwide, Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to be on top of the list.

PM Modi is still the most popular world leader on Facebook, with more than 44.7 million likes on his personal page and 13.7 million likes on his institutional Prime Minister of India page, which is on fourth position.

US President Donald Trump is the second most popular world leader on Facebook, with more than 26 million likes and Jordan’s Queen Rania is at third position with 16.8 million likes, although she has registered a slight decline over the past 12 months.

According to a leading global communications agency Burson Cohn & Wolfe (BCW), during the month of March, 721 pages of world leaders analysed in the study, part of the Twiplomacy series, have added 13 million new page likes, a 3.7 per cent increase, which is almost half of the growth these pages enjoyed overall over the past 12 months.

The pages of Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and those of the governments of Austria, Estonia and Italy have more than doubled their page likes in March, 2020 alone.

For the first time during the study, which is now in it’s fourth year, has incorporated the true reach per post for each of the Facebook pages of world leaders, defined as a prediction of the number of real views, an influencer gets per post rather than the volume of followers alone.

PM Modi reaches on average 1.7 million of his fans, which represents only 3.8 per cent of his Facebook community. Brazil’s President reaches on average 956,000 of his 10 million fans and the US President, who has 26 million likes, reaches 877,000 fans, which is only 3.3 per cent of his massive community.

However, President Trump dominates the rankings for the most interactions with 309 million comments, likes and shares on his Facebook page over the past 12 months, ahead of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, with 205 million interactions.

PM Modi, who has more than four times as many page likes, is only in third place with a total of 84 million interactions over the past 12 months.

 Precious Kashmir News
Srinagar, Apr 23: Director General of Police Dilbag Singh visited Police Welfare Centre and Police Workshop in the Srinagar district to assess the ongoing work of fabrication of protective gears/ articles and sanitizing tunnels in view of COVID-19 outbreak. He was accompanied by IGP Kashmir Zone Vijay Kumar during the tour.

The DGP lauded the role of Jammu Kashmir Police’s Welfare Centres of all districts and units across the Union Territory for producing hundreds of masks and personal protection articles for the use of JK Police personnel at the time when these articles act as lifesaving boon.

The DGP said that there was chance of shortage of these articles in the open market, our welfare centre’s role in fabricating masks and protection gears for the safety of JK Police personnel, doctors and other frontline workers of the Police Hospital is commendable. Interacting with the officials of Police Welfare Centre, he appreciated their dedication and work in its efforts towards prevention of COVID-19.
Later the DGP inspected the Srinagar Police Workshop and took stock of the preparedness in making sanitizing tunnels. SSP Workshop Dr S D Choudhary briefed the DGP about the activities of the workshop.

Nasir Azam

Srinagar, Apr 23: A senior bureaucrat in J&K government on Tuesday revealed that Rs 400 crore were lying unspent in education sector, raising questions on spending capacity of the government.

This disclosure was made by J&K’s Principal Secretary for School Education, Asgar Samoon, who is known for plain speaking on governance issues. “Under CSS Samagra, Rs 400 crore lying unspent with directors/ ceos/zeos/MHs/ teachers; SPD may try to expedite expenditure on ground in next 4 weeks,” Samoon tweeted.

The disclosure has been made by Samoon at a time when there is complete lockdown in Jammu & Kashmir as part of the shutdown announced by the Centre to prevent spread of deadly coronavirus.

A senior official revealed that these funds are meant for civil construction works approved under the scheme.

“While work on some of these projects is in progress, the other works could not be taken up due to unavailability of land and other issues,” he said. Samoon also revealed that Rs 870 crore released by the Centre last year are lying with Finance department.

The Samagra Shiksha scheme was unveiled by the Centre in 2018-19 after subsuming the three erstwhile Schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).

Under the programme, MHRD funds states and Union Territories for infrastructure and teaching staff in school education sector. The fund sharing pattern for the scheme between Centre and J&K is at present in the ratio of 90:10.

Jammu, Apr 23: Jammu and Kashmir UT has bagged three national awards under separate categories for outstanding contribution by its Panchayati Raj Institutions towards socio-economic development of Gram Panchayats, adopting child-friendly practices and preparing Gram Panchayat Development Plan at the panchayat level.

The awards were given under three different categories viz. Nanaji Deshmukh Rashtriya Gaurav Gram Sabha Puraskar (NDRGGSP), Gram Panchayat Development Plans (GPDP) Award, Child-friendly Gram Panchayat Award by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, GoI to recognise the efforts and work done by the best performing panchayats all over the country.

The awards are aimed at to strengthen the institution of Gram Sabhas highlighting it as an institution of decision making.

While Panchayat Jamola Lower of District Rajouri has been awarded child-friendly Gram Panchayat Award 2020 for adopting best practices in terms of ensuring timely vaccination of children, optimum enrolment, attendance of teachers in schools, reduction of drop-out rate in schools, open defecation free status, implementation of Mid-day Meal scheme and drinking water facilities.

Panchayat Dhangri of the same district has been awarded with Nanaji Deshmukh Gaurav Gram Sabha Puraskar for outstanding performance in improving the socio-economic fabric of the panchayat.

Similarly, Panchayat Zaloora B of District Baramulla has been adjudged as best performing GP for the Gram Panchayat Development Plan awards for preparing holistic and comprehensive development plan for the panchayat.

Appreciating the tireless efforts, dedication and good work carried out by the awardee Panchayats, Secretary, Rural Development Department, Sheetal Nanda, impressed upon other panchayats to replicate similar steps and adopt best practices in their respective panchayats for greater welfare of the rural masses.

Secretary said that all the Sarpanchs and Panchayat members should fully utilise their powers to the fullest for desired development and growth of their panchayats. She expressed extreme satisfaction that in a short span of one year and four months only the Sarpanchs and Panchs of these panchayats have adopted the role of community leaders and started working for the betterment of their people.

She extended felicitations to Akis Nisar, Sarpanch, Panchayat Jamola Lower, Dheeraj Kumar, Sarpanch, Panchayat Dhangri and Ghulam Ahmed Lone Sarpanch, Zaloora B for winning the awards. She also applauded the efforts of Abdul Khabir, District Panchayat Officer, Rajouri and Yar Ali, District Panchayat Officer Baramulla for their active role in making this possible.