Good morning! In today’s news, projections for the economy are not good, and a Hindu temple in the US has been upto some shady business promptin FBI to intervene.
Coronavirus News
👩🔬 Science Divided WHO recommended against general use of the antiparasitic drug ivermectin (Goa recommended it for all adults, health ministry for fevers). But a recent study says it is useful.
💉 Vaccinations: Centre says it will cut allocation of vaccines if states earmarks less than 70% of dose for 45+ 2nd dose, curb vaccine wastage.
🧔🏼 PM WFH: PM Modi’s trip to London for G-7 meeting cancelled.
🥶 AstraZeneca Troubles: Slovakia, Brazil have suspended AstraZeneca vaccinations after deaths were reported from the two countries. EU suing it for 90mn shots that it owes. Company’s CEO Pascal Soriot gets £18 mn bonus.
🚷 Lockdown : Telangana 10-day lockdown from today; Nagaland from May 14; Gujarat curbs till May 18; Visitors to Kerala need RT-PCR report.
😪 Tragedy: 26 die in Goa hospital over O2 shortage
🙏 Dead: Astronomy communicator Dr Nandivada Rathnasree (57), writer and actor Madambu Kunjukuttan (81)
👏 Centre Appreciates: Mumbai’s decentralised model should be adopted at national level, Pune fine example of putting in place containment measures
🙊 Docked: Former Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu booked for saying AP variant of virus was “10 times” more transmissible.
👩🏼⚖️ Allahabad HC: “EC, higher courts and govt failed to fathom disastrous consequence of polls…” [On April 7, HC refused to postpone polls]
⚰️ AMU strain?: Aligarh Muslim University lost 18 professors in two weeks.
📉 Moody economy: Rating agency Moody’s says India’s growth will be 9.3%, not 13% that it had earlier projected; Business activity back to June ’20 levels
💰 Tweeting Controversy : Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey donates $15 mn towards Covid relief, including RSS’ aid arm.
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ET interview with INOX Air Products executive director Siddharth Jain:
On situation: Prior to Covid, demand was 700 tonnes, now 9K tonnes. During first wave, 3K tonnes.
On supply: Manufacturing is easy. Delivering is hard. Total production units in India is 70 but 64% capacity in East and West India but demand is greatest in North. O2 tankers at just 1,172 of 15 tons.
On customers: Not their birthright to ask for 10 times more supply than what is mentioned in the contract… demoralising for us when they took us to court.
Other India News
👮 Cops it: Mumbai police crime branch officer Sachin Vaze suspected of planting explosives outside Mukesh Ambani house dismissed from service.
🙏 Dead: Former Kerala minister KR Gouri Amma (102), Malayalam script writer and director Dennis Joseph (64), Tamil actor Nellai Siva (69)
🙄 Et tu? : Madhya Pradesh vocational education to focus on vedic knowledge, promote new Indian writers and remove Shakespeare. Minister says: “There is huge demand for astrology.”
👨⚖️ Lawyers’ Ire: Punjab and Haryana HC lawyers to boycott their chief justice RS Jha over “irregularities” in listing cases– only 12/49 judges allotted work.
World
⚔️ Age of Rockets : At least 35 dead in Palestine, including 10 kids, in Israeli airstrike. At least 5 dead in Israel in Palestinian militants’ rocketstrike. Risk of civil unrest as Palestinian citizens in Israel protest attacks, discrimination. UN’s Middle East envoy: “Escalating towards full-scale war”.
😞 Gun Violence: Seven students and a teacher killed in Russian school, Putin says will revise gun laws for civilians. Suspect: 19-year-old man arrested.
👧 Puppet Walkathon: 11 feet high Syrian girl puppet to “walk” from Turkey to UK – 8,000 km -as part of “The Walk” project to celebrate potential of refugees
🇮🇷 Iran elections: Narrowing of presidential candidate eligibility — age between 40 and 75 — criticised. Outgoing president asks interior ministry to ignore the change effected by the country’s Guardian Council.
🇺🇸 Not like this: US Biden administration is holding thousands of asylum seeking children in 200 facilities. In the last two months, the numbers doubled. System so opaque that parents cannot trace their children.
🐶🪙 Like-a-Boss : Goldman Sachs executive made millions over investing in Dogecoin that had risen in value by 1000% . He has now quit his job.
🛕 Temple Run: A Hindu sect in New Jersey is accused of labour exploitation — bringing in mostly Dalits from India and making them work under inhumane conditions — to build “largest temple in NJ”. FBI took 90 workers from site.
🇨🇳 Poetic Business : Shares of China’s largest food delivery firm Meituan drops after its boss shares a 1000-year-old poem on social media. The poem was interpreted as a veiled criticism of President Xi Jinping.
🌋 Died a Hero : Archaeologists think the skeleton of man unearthed from Mt Vesuvius was someone trying to rescue people during its eruption 2000 years ago.
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News of Yesterday: English nurse Florence Nightingale born in Florence, Italy on May 12, 1820
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this page read that Gujarat curbs would be till May 8. It has been corrected to May 18.
News Of Today 