巴拉特

作者： bharat.cn

  • In its latest update, the Centre said the Covid-19 death toll has risen to 4,167 and the number of cases has climbed to 1,45,380 in the country

    In its latest update, the Centre said the Covid-19 death toll has risen to 4,167 and the number of cases has climbed to 1,45,380 in the country

    The nationwide tally of Covid-19 cases crossed 1.45 lakh on Tuesday with states like Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Odisha reporting a significant rise in their numbers amid the large-scale return of migrant workers from other states.

    The numbers also rose further in the worst-hit states including Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, while Delhi, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, among other states and union territories, also reported more new cases.

    Indian Railways has ferried over 44 lakh migrant workers on board 3,276 ‘Shramik Special’ trains since May 1. According to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri, an additional 41,673 people had traveled to their home states via flights till 5 pm on Tuesday.

    To control the fresh spike in cases created by the mass movement, several states on Tuesday announced mandatory institutional quarantine on arrival for all.

    Meanwhile, the Supreme Court directed the central and state government to immediately provide adequate transport arrangements, food and shelters free of cost to migrant labourers stranded across the country due to the Covid-19 lockdown.

    Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that the Modi government failed in controlling Covid-19 outbreak through the nationwide lockdown. The Congress leader asked the Centre to share it’s Plan B to contain the pandemic.

    Fresh spike in cases due to migrant movement

    Several states have been attributing the increase in their tallies to the arrival of people from outside in special trains, being run since May 1 to ferry migrant workers to their native places, and special international flights that began on May 1 to bring back stranded Indians and expatriates from abroad. Besides, domestic flights have also begun since Monday in a phased manner.

    During a review meeting on the Covid-19 situation in Odisha, which saw its tally rising to 1,517 with 79 new cases, CM Naveen Patnaik said a new strategy would be needed to deal with the pandemic.

    “With flight and train services having been restored, the next 15 to 30 days will be challenging, but I am sure we will be able to handle it all in a professional manner,” he said.

    Over 40 thousand passengers return home via flights

    Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri said that at least 41,673 passengers had returned to their home states by 5 pm on Tuesday – day 2 of flight operations in India since the lockdown on March 25.

    Hardeep Puri said that airports in India handled 325 departures and 283 arrivals by Tuesday evening.

    Even as the minister claimed smooth operations on the airports, a case of Covid-19 among passengers on a flight to Coimbatore had set off the alarm bells. A doctor, who travelled on Chennai-Coimbatore Indigo flight Monday, later tested positive for novel coronavirus. The doctor has been shifted to ESI Hospital for treatment and flight staff has been grounded for 14 days, while the airlines is tracing everyone who was on the flight with the doctor.

    Rahul Gandhi terms lockdown failure

    Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the four phases of the nationwide lockdown have “failed” and not given the results that Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected.

    Addressing an online press conference, he urged the Centre to spell out its strategy for “opening up” the country and expressed concern that India is the only country which is relaxing the lockdown when the virus is “exponentially rising”. 

    The ruling BJP, however, said the doubling rate of coronavirus infection has fallen to 13 days from three before the lockdown and called it a “success” of India.

    BJP leader and Union minister Prakash Javadekar said the Modi government’s decision to impose the lockdown has ensured that India suffered much less than countries like the US, France and Spain. He took a swipe at the Congress, saying it is doing politics at a time when the nation is fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

  • Crashed Pakistani Plane’s Pilot Ignored 3 Warnings To Lower Altitude

    The pilot of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA)’s crashed plane ignored three warnings from the air traffic controllers about the aircraft’s altitude and speed before the landing, saying he was satisfied and would handle the situation, according to a report on Monday.

    The national flag carrier’s PK-8303 tragedy on Friday, in which 97 people were killed and two miraculously survived, is one of the most catastrophic aviation disasters in the country’s history.

    The Airbus A-320 from Lahore to Karachi was 15 nautical miles from the Jinnah International Airport, flying at an altitude of 10,000 feet above the ground instead of 7,000 when the Air Traffic Control (ATC) issued its first warning to lower the plane’s altitude, Geo News quoted an ATC report as saying.

    Instead of lowering the altitude, the pilot responded by saying that he was satisfied. When only 10 nautical miles were left till the airport, the plane was at an altitude of 7,000 feet instead of 3,000 feet, it said.

    The ATC issued a second warning to the pilot to lower the plane’s altitude. However, the pilot responded again by stating that he was satisfied and would handle the situation, saying he was ready for landing, the report said.

    The report said that the plane had enough fuel to fly for two hours and 34 minutes, while its total flying time was recorded at one hour and 33 minutes.

    Pakistani investigators are trying to find out if the crash is attributable to a pilot error or a technical glitch.

    According to a report prepared by the country’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the plane’s engines had scraped the runway thrice on the pilot’s first attempt to land, causing friction and sparks recorded by the experts.

    When the aircraft scraped the ground on the first failed attempt at landing, the engine’s oil tank and fuel pump may have been damaged and started to leak, preventing the pilot from achieving the required thrust and speed to raise the aircraft to safety, the report said.

    The pilot made a decision “on his own” to undertake a “go-around” after he failed to land the first time. It was only during the go-around that the ATC was informed that landing gear was not deploying, it said.

    “The pilot was directed by the air traffic controller to take the aircraft to 3,000 feet, but he managed only 1,800. When the cockpit was reminded to go for the 3,000 feet level, the first officer said ‘we are trying’,” the report said.

    Experts said that the failure to achieve the directed height indicates that the engines were not responding. The aircraft, thereafter, tilted and crashed suddenly.

    The flight crashed at the Jinnah Garden area near Model Colony in Malir on Friday afternoon, minutes before its landing in Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport. Eleven people on the ground were injured.

    The probe team, headed by Air Commodore Muhammad Usman Ghani, President of the Aircraft Accident and Investigation Board, is expected to submit a full report in about three months.

    According to the PIA’s engineering and maintenance department, the last check of the plane was done on March 21 this year and it had flown from Muscat to Lahore a day before the crash.

    In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pakistan government had allowed the limited domestic flight operations from five major airports – Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta – from May 16.

    After the plane tragedy, the PIA has called off its domestic operation. 

  • Balbir Singh Sr December 31, 1923 to May 25, 2020: In honour of a legend who redefined Indian hockey

    India woke up to the tragic news of the passing of Balbir Singh Dosanjh or Balbir Singh Sr, as he was popularly known as in the sporting community.

    A legend in field hockey, Balbir Singh Sr. was perhaps a name which not many would mention in their all-time greatest Indian athletes list but his name should actually be taken in the same vein as Major Major Dhyan Chand, Sachin Tendulkar, etc.

    Balbir Singh’s contribution to field hockey, especially for independent India, was unparalleled. Today’s generation might not be aware of this fact but Balbir Singh Sr. was a giant in his sport and the most decorated athlete in Indian sports history with Olympic medals in 1948, 1952 and 1956 Summer Games.

    His achievements go beyond the three Olympic medals because just his impact in field hockey, just like Dhyan Chand, was something that cannot be measured in mere words.

    Regarded as the greatest centre-forward in the sport, Balbir Singh Sr and sprint legend Milkha Singh were so popular that they never required an appointment to meet the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. “It’s true. We could meet him at short notice. He loved hockey,” Balbir Singh Sr had once said.

    OLYMPIC RUN

    Balbir Singh Sr. played a key role in all three gold-medal winning performances in the Summer Games. His record for the most number of goals scored in an Olympic men’s hockey final stands to this day when he hammered 5 goals in India’s 6-1 victory over the Netherlands in the Gold medal match of the 1952 Helsinki Games.

    Under his Captaincy, India scored 38 goals and conceded none on its way to the Gold medal in 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

    Beating England 4-0 in their own backyard during the Final of the 1948 Olympic Games as an independent nation was Balbir Sr’s ‘greatest moment’.

    Balbir Singh Sr is also the only Asian male and only Indian among 16 athletes to be chosen as “Iconic Olympians” by the International Olympic Committee across the modern Olympics’ history. He was one of the 16 iconic Olympians chosen[19] whose example “tells of human strength and endeavour, of passion, determination, hard work and achievement and demonstrates the values of the Olympic Movement”

    He was also a member of the Indian hockey team that won the silver medal at the 1958 Asian Games.