Seventy-seven cases of B.1.617, which has potentially worrying mutations, reported in England and Scotland
A coronavirus variant with potentially worrying mutations that was first detected in India has been found in the UK.
In total, 77 cases of the variant, known as B.1.617, have been recorded in the UK up to 14 April, according to the latest update from Public Health England (PHE), released on Thursday. Of these, 73 were recorded in England and four in Scotland.
Continue reading...Doctors say ‘absurd’ move, made as second wave surges, is unfair on non-Covid patients
Doctors have expressed fears for patients after the government ordered that the majority of the beds in 14 of Delhi’s biggest private hospitals be reserved exclusively for Covid patients, as the Indian capital’s healthcare system struggles to cope with a virulent second wave.
The announcement by the government came as the situation in Delhi grew increasingly dire, with over 17,000 new cases reported on Wednesday, breaking all records since the pandemic began, and 104 deaths. The capital has overtaken Mumbai, previously Covid ground zero in India, in terms of the number of new cases reported every day.
Continue reading...Doctors speak of a new variant of the virus that appears to be spreading faster than ever before
Dr K Senthil had feared it was coming.
He had feared it as he saw the reckless crush of hundreds of people taking part in large wedding parties over the past months, feared it as he saw the maskless faces of shoppers at the market, feared it as he witnessed thousands come together for political rallies in the ongoing elections in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where he is the president of the state medical council.
Continue reading...Faced with climate change, farmers in Jammu and Kashmir are switching from maize to essential oils
It’s late June and the field is glowing with fragrant purple as the women in their flowing shalwar kameez arrive with scythes to harvest the lavender. In the 30-odd villages on the hilly slopes of Jammu’s Doda district, more than 200 farmers have shifted from maize to lavender production, starting a “purple revolution” in the region.
The village of Lehrote had a moment of agricultural fame this year when a 43-year-old farmer, Bharat Bhushan, won a prestigious award for innovative farming from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, one of several institutions across the country looking to find ways of coping with the climate crisis and its devastating impact on farming. Lavender, a drought-resistant crop, can be grown on poor soil and likes lots of sun but needs little water.
Continue reading...World Health Organization says ‘confusion and complacency’ prolonging global situation
The global coronavirus pandemic is still growing exponentially, the World Health Organization said on Monday, as it reported 4.4m cases in the last week, the seventh straight week of rising numbers.
The latest global figures represent a 9% increase in infections on last week and a 5% rise in deaths.
Continue reading...Overfishing and smuggling of this crucial animal are affecting biodiversity and the livelihood of local fishers in Sri Lanka
It’s after sunset in Jaffna when Anthony Vigrado dives into the waters of Palk Bay, scanning the seafloor to collect what seems to be prized treasure. What he comes back with are sea cucumbers – long, leathery-skinned creatures that are increasingly valuable and the source of his income for the past 12 years.
But after a 10-hour search, his harvest is only a fraction of what it used to be, as the shores of northern Sri Lanka and southern India have become a prime spot for exploitation.
Continue reading...India records 145,384 new Covid-19 cases and 794 deaths, the highest number of fatalities in more than five months; lockdown ordered in Iran
The British Retail Consortium estimated that lockdowns in 2020 cost non-essential retail £22bn in lost sales. So with non-essential shops allowed to open again on Monday after nearly four months, retailers have concocted plans to make real-life shopping trips a pastime once again.
Lauren Cochrane looks at how different shops are adapting:
Related: Lockdowns have cost £22bn in lost sales, say British retailers
According to a tally compiled by AFP, at least 2,917,316 people have died from Covid-19 worldwide since the virus first emerged in December 2019.
The US is the worst-affected country with 561,074 deaths, followed by Brazil at 348,718, Mexico with 207,020, India with 168,436 and Britain with 127,040.
Continue reading...Community leader says: ‘We don’t feel like a part of the “team of 5 million” when Indians are singled out like this’
Community leaders have questioned the New Zealand government’s decision to temporarily close the border to people travelling from India, and say they fear the move could prompt racism and stigma.
“The question of ‘Why India?’ must be asked, and a clear answer should be given,” said Sunil Kaushal, president of the Waitakere Indian Association. He asked why the ruling applied only to India, when other nations including the United States, Brazil, France and the UK had also experienced soaring infection rates, especially when compared per-capita.
Continue reading...Country reports 115,000 fresh infections in 24 hours, the highest single-day total anywhere in world
India has carried out a record 4.3m daily vaccinations as its second wave of coronavirus continued its rapid spread, with 115,000 fresh infections in 24 hours – the highest single-day total anywhere in the world.
While the vaccination rate, which had been been hovering at between 2-3m a day, was a triumph it was not enough to quell the sense of despondency over the sharp increase in cases.
Continue reading...Photographer Prashanth Vishwanathan captured a network of community dairies helping off-grid farmers in Maharashtra keep milk fresh as temperatures rise. All pictures are from Climate Visuals
As global temperatures climb, a lack of refrigeration makes a big impact on people trying to make a living from farming. Especially dairy farms.
There are more than 75 million smallholder dairy farmers in India. Most are in off-grid areas without refrigeration, or reliant on expensive and polluting diesel generators. This locks people out of national supply chains, and farmers have to spend hours transporting milk to markets, or sell at a lower price to middlemen. In Maharashtra, western India, a network of community dairies has been set up, using sustainable refrigeration technology, where people can bring their milk to be tested, chilled, and sold on.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson is hoping to improve relations with rising superpower but many roadblocks stand in his way
George Osborne, the former British chancellor, tells the story of how, soon after Narendra Modi had been elected prime minister of India in 2014, he and the then foreign secretary, William Hague, alighted on a plan to fly immediately to India to make sure they were the first through the door to congratulate the new leader of the world’s largest democracy.
They decided to take the only British politician who seemed to know Modi well, Priti Patel, now home secretary, then recently appointed the government’s “India diaspora champion”. There was a pushback in the Whitehall system due to Modi’s record of stirring up inter-community violence in Gujarat – a Republican president in 2005 even banned him from travelling to the US – but the pair decided that the Anglo-Indian relationship was finally ready to shed the layers of imperial legacy. “If we are not going to engage with India, who are we going to engage with?” Osborne asked.
Continue reading...Tensions rise on borders as thousands seek safe haven from military crackdown
Myanmar’s escalating crisis is spilling across its borders, as thousands of refugees seek safe haven in India and Thailand in the wake of the military coup and bloody crackdowns on anti-coup protesters.
Authorities in both countries have tried to block new arrivals, fearing that a steady flow may become a flood, if unrest spreading through Myanmar worsens. A top UN official warned last week that the country is “on the verge of spiralling into a failed state” if action is not taken soon to stem the bloodshed.
Continue reading...The waste caught by fishing boats used to be thrown back into the sea but in Kerala it is now turned into black gold
For years, plastic caught by fishing communities on the Kollam coast in India’s southern state of Kerala was thrown back into the water, damaging aquatic ecosystems and killing fish.
But fishers are spearheading an innovative initiative to clean up the ocean – along with their daily hauls of fish, they pull in and collect the waste that gets enmeshed in their nets.
Continue reading...Serum Institute boss Adar Poonawalla has rented a Mayfair mansion for £50,000 a week
The AstraZeneca vaccine has made Prof Sarah Gilbert – who led the Oxford team that created it – one of the UK’s most famous modern scientists and turned the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company into a household name.
But almost half of all the AstraZeneca shots, destined for the arms of hundreds of millions of people around the world, are being produced by a 40-year-old Indian billionaire with a penchant for private jets and Picassos.
Continue reading...Tensions between Muslims and Hindus high as Modi’s BJP shows it could win state for first time
In the sleepy, swampy surroundings of Nandigram, West Bengal, where mango and coconut trees grow in abundance, bicycles meander down dusty lanes and ponds fester with green algae, a vicious political showdown has been brewing.
West Bengal, one of India’s most populous states, will begin voting in its elections on Saturday to elect its state government. The significance of the poll, however, spreads far beyond the state’s borders. “The soul of not just Bengal but India is at stake,” said Malay Tewari, a Bengali social activist.
Continue reading...Temporary hold put on exports of vaccines by Serum Institute of India to meet demand at home
Delhi has reportedly put a temporary hold on all major exports of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India (SII) to meet demand at home as infections surge.
The move, first reported by Reuters, will affect supplies to the Gavi/WHO-backed Covax vaccine-sharing facility through which more than 180 countries are expected to get doses, one of the sources said.
Continue reading...The body of Toyah Cordingley, 24, was found in sand dunes north of Cairns in October 2018
Australia has taken the first step towards catching a runaway suspect believed to have murdered Toyah Cordingley on a Queensland beach before fleeing to India.
It has been two-and-a-half years since the body of the 24-year-old was found in the dunes of Wangetti beach, north of Cairns, following what police called “a personal and intimate attack”.
Continue reading...The 13 new constables have overcome society’s prejudice to win a place at Chhattisgarh’s training academy
The top police officer in Chhattisgarh state, Durgesh Awasthi, has nothing but praise for his new recruits. He suspects, he says, some of them will prove to be “the best cops” the force has ever enlisted.
“They are sensitive, have a high emotional quotient and know not just how the other half lives but what it’s like being on the other side of the law,” said Awasthi.
Continue reading...Challenge of reaching vast, far-flung populations is combined with a lack of public interest
The day India started coronavirus vaccinations, Amit Mehra’s name was on the priority list. But he never made an appointment. “I’m not inclined to get vaccinated just because it’s available,” says the 47-year-old Delhi hospital worker.
Two and a half thousand miles away, strolling past a popup inoculation centre near Red Square in Moscow, Magomed Zurabov is similarly reluctant. Suspicious that the pandemic was deliberately engineered, he has no intention of being vaccinated, he says. Instead, he is “taking the necessary precautions”: wearing a mask and using disinfectant.
Continue reading...Critics warn of imperial fantasy but the economic and political forces pulling the UK back to the region are real
Some will call it a tilt, others a rebalancing and yet others a pivot but, either way, the new big idea due to emerge from the government’s foreign and defence policy review on Tuesday will be the importance of the Indo-Pacific region – a British return east of Suez more than 50 years after the then defence secretary Denis Healey announced the UK’s cash-strapped retreat in 1968.
Boris Johnson and his admirals are billing the focus on a zone stretching through some of the world’s most vital seaways east from India to Japan and south from China to Australia as Britain stepping out in the world after 47 years locked in the EU’s protectionist cupboard. Others warn Johnson is indulging a hubristic and militarily dangerous imperial fantasy.
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