MASKS UP
😷 WHAT: As Covid-19 cases continue rising in India after weeks of steady decline, UP, Haryana and Delhi have reimposed mandatory mask mandates in certain areas.
📍 DELHI: Fine for not wearing mask = Rs 500. Random tests at public places.
🦠 LATEST: India on Wednesday reported 2,067 new Covid cases, a 65% rise from yesterday.
📣 India’s R value, an indicator of how quickly the infection is spreading, has increased to over one for the first time since January, per Chennai's Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The country's R value, steadily increasing over the last few weeks, was 1.07 for the week between April 12-18.
TRANSMISSION DELAY
🏗 WHAT: At 9 AM on Wednesday morning, Delhi municipal authorities reached Jahangirpuri, which witnessed communal violence last week, and began tearing down constructions around the mosque which was the central point of the violence.
❗️Several shops, kiosks and the outer gate of the mosque was torn down by 14 municipal teams using nine excavators, in the presence of 1,500 police and paramilitary personnel.
📣 Shortly after the demolition drive began, the Supreme Court asked authorities to maintain status quo and listed the matter for urgent hearing tomorrow.
❗️Yet, the demolition drive continued for two hours after the SC’s order. The MCD said the order had not reached them so they would continue.
⏰ Senior lawyer Dushyant Dave, appearing for Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, rushed to the SC a little after 12 pm raising this issue. The SC had to reiterate its urgent order, and by the time the municipal authorities received a physical copy of the order, more than 20 structures around the mosque had been razed down.
❓WHY: Delhi’s mayor, who has termed today’s drive as a "routine exercise", was urged by the Delhi BJP Chief to identify illegal constructions by "rioters" and demolish them.
📄 FYI: No prior notice was given to owners of demolished structures. The owner of one permanent shop that was razed down said he had all the necessary papers and permissions but no one looked at them.
🕰 Dave claims the drive was scheduled for 2 PM but the authorities pushed it forward knowing he would mention it before the court.
🔎 A PATTERN: Demolition drives against those accused of communal violence, often without cause, have been conducted before in UP, and more recently, in MP’s Khargone on April 11.
📢 IMPORTANT: The MP government has invoked the stringent National Security Act against two persons, Nawaz and Mohsin, allegedly involved in the violence
AGAIN AND AGAIN
❗️WHAT: Four sanitation workers died of asphyxiation in Haryana’s Hisar district on April 19, while cleaning a 50-feet-deep sewage tank.
🥀 WHO: Surender Kumar (28), Mahender Singh (25), Rajesh (26) and Rahul Kumar (27).
✊🏾 WHAT NOW: A magisterial enquired has been ordered.
🇮🇳 AGAIN AND AGAIN: Between March 27-29, at least 15 sanitation workers have died inside sewers in the last three days.
📍 THREE sanitation workers died after they got trapped in a sewer in Delhi’s Rohini on March 29.
📍 FOUR sanitation workers died while cleaning a septic tank in a wool mill in Rajasthan’s Bikaner on March 27.
📍TWO sanitation workers died due to asphyxiation while cleaning a sewage tank at a residential building in Maharashtra’s Mumbra on March 29.
📍 TWO sanitation workers died while cleaning a water tank of a cultural centre in Maharashtra’s Thane on March 27.
📍 FOUR sanitation workers died inside sewers in Rae Bareli and Lucknow on March 29. None had been given safety gear.
👉🏽 ON THE RECORD: No death has been reported for engaging in manual scavenging, but 325 people have lost their lives in accidents while undertaking hazardous cleaning of sewer and septic tanks in the last five years—Centre in Lok Sabha on March 16
📌 A TECHNICALITY: Manual scavenging is banned in India, but its legal definition is limited to the practice of cleaning human excreta by hand. Cleaning sewers and septic tanks (including those in toilets), manually, is not banned in India, though the rules make extensive protective gear mandatory.
🇮🇳 These rules are almost never followed and the practice remains almost entirely caste-bound.
#NEWSWORTHY SNIPPETS
MINI STORIES WORTH YOUR ATTENTION
🇬🇧 A British judge has formally approved the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States to face spying charges. The case will now go to Britain’s interior minister for a decision. Assange still has some legal avenues of appeal.
TWO CENTS
🎙 ON THE RECORD: “The bane of live-in-relationship is a by-product of Constitutional guarantee as provided under Article 21, engulfing the ethos of Indian society, and promoting lascivious behaviour, giving further rise to sexual offences.”
👨⚖️ WHO: Observation by Justice Subodh Abhyankar of the Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court
📄 THE CASE: A 25-year-old man accused of raping a woman filed for anticipatory bail. The two were in a live-in relationship during which the woman got pregnant twice and aborted it both times because he pressurised her to do so. After their relationship ended, he harassed and blackmailed her, even leading to her marriage being cancelled.
📌 NOW WHAT: The court rejected the accused’s bail plea.
✏️ NOTE: Over the years, many courts have recognised the legitimacy of live-in relationships, lent by the fundamental rights to life, liberty, privacy and dignity guaranteed in the Constitution
WHAT’S YOUR NETFLIX PASSWORD?
😬 WHAT: Netflix lost two lakh subscribers in the first three months of the year, per its first quarter results.
📉 DOMINO EFFECT: Netflix shares plunged more than 25% in after-hours trading wiping more than $30billion off the company's market valuation.
🍿 WHY: Stiff competition with rivals like Disney+ TV, Apple TV
💵 Increased subscription fee in the US and Canada
🇷🇺 Leaving Russia after it invaded Ukraine cost Netflix 700,000 subscribers
📺 Subscribers sharing passwords with friends and family. Netflix estimates more than 100 million households are breaking its rules by sharing passwords.
📣 WHAT NOW: Netflix is testing out measures to curb password-sharing as a top priority. The streaming giant has also warned shareholders another two million subscribers will likely leave in the three months to July.
#QUOTEWORTHY
THAT'S WHAT HE SAID
🙂 "Both these striking personalities [Narendra Modi and B R Ambedkar] succeeded against odds that people from socially disempowered sections of the society face. Both saw poverty and stifling social structures from close quarters and worked to dismantle them, but both are also practical men who believe in action rather than mere thought exercises."—Music maestro Ilayaraja on the foreword for Ambedkar & Modi: Reformer’s Ideas, Performer’s Implementations
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