The Japanese are having less to do with the Olympic Games scheduled for July as anger mounts over official apathy. Lakshadweep’s acting administrator’s new draft rules are causing a stir in the island with parliamentarians now writing to the President to recall the acting administrator. And finally, there are Covid lockdown violations, including a marriage in the sky, that will make you go 🤦♀️
CORONAVIRUS NEWS
💉 Opening: Centre allows those between 18 to 44 years to register for jab on-site but leaves it to states to take final call.
📉 Dipping: For first time in 40 days, India’s daily Covid case count<200K. Deaths continue to rise as deaths will lag cases by at least 2 weeks.
🐕🦺 Woof Test: Covid-19 patients give off a distinct odour that dogs can catch thanks to 300mn olfactory receptors (humans only 5mn), finds study. Results in a second and training from 8 to 10 weeks.
💉💉 Vaccine mess Programme: Centre affidavit in Kerala high court says: 85 mn vaccinations being produced a month, and 1.3mn jabs administered a day. Doing math: 1.3mn * 30 = 39mn a month, missing= 85-39= 46mn; Pfizer and Moderna order books full, India may have to wait longer.
💉💉💉 Unmessing a little: Russian company has said it will manufacture 850 mn doses a year of Sputnik V in association with others in India. Bharat Biotech says it has given 90% documents to WHO for their approval of Covaxin.
😑 Officials and commons: Addnl Collector in Madhya Pradesh slaps man for violating Covid norms. ddnl Collector in Madhya Pradesh slaps man for violating Covid norms. In MP, some people attacked officials who were on a vaccine awareness drive. In B’luru, a teenager was assaulted when he refused to be tested.
✈️🐴 AirWedding, Neighsayers: After a wedding in a chartered SpiceJet plane, DGCA has pulled up the airlines and de-rostered the crew over Covid violations. The aircraft, according to air traffic data, hovered over the revered Meenakshi temple too. On horse funeral, we’ll let you make sense of it.
🧒👦🏼 Kids are OK: With many saying that children may be the next victims of a possible third wave, experts say there is no proof for this. The 2nd wave, for example, had a similar impact on different age groups like in the first.
🇯🇵🏊♀️ No can do: Int’l Olympic Committee’s request to the Japanese to “sacrifice” for the Games has not gone down well with the public. Only 2% Japanese got jabs.
💊 Yellow Fungus: A Ghaziabad hospital reported the first case of “yellow fungus” in a man who already had black fungus and white fungus after Covid. Govt awaits tissue sample test before confirming anything.
🚷 Lockdown: Bihar extends till June 1.
INDIA NEWS
🙅🏻♂️ Lakshadweep: Acting administrator Praful Patel under fire from two MPs over drafting rules for mandatory acquiring private property, police can detain anyone, removed beef from mid-day meal, cut trees for roads and introduced a 2-child norm for contesting local body polls. BJP and Patel say that “only the corrupt were upset” and that all moves were part of “development” agenda..
🌀 Yaas Advances: IMD warns that the cyclone is likely to intensify further and inundate low-lying areas. Winds upto 166kmph.
🐄 Cowboys: UP Police arrest four “gau-rakshaks” for assaulting a meat seller in Meerut. Victim also booked on charges of killing a bovine.
👨🏼🌾 Protest Begins: Many farmers begin a stir in Hisar against the Centre’s farm laws.
🦜Parrot-head: PM Modi, Supreme Court Chief Justice NV Ramana and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury came up with three names to head CBI. Chowdhury objects to process.
🛠️Whose Tools: Delhi Police officers visited Twitter offices in connection with the Congress complaint that BJP’s Sambit Patra had tweeted false info, and Twitter thereafter tagged it “manipulated media”.
😡 Sexual Harassment: Premier Chennai school Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan (PSBB) suspends a teacher, now in police custody, who the students and alumni complained against. Students say they had complained to school earlier, to no avail. An alumnus posted their stories on Instagram forcing people to take note.
💬 WhatsApp Again: Facebook says it will not restrict access of users who have not yet accepted the new privacy policy. But it will continue to request users to do so until India’s data protection policy comes in.
WORLD NEWS
🚇 Train Crash: Metro train crashes into empty one in Kuala Lampur causing injuries to over 200 people.
🐀 Rats!: After drought, Australia is suffering a “mouse plague”.
🇮🇱🇵🇸 Israel, Palestine: US assures it will seek “equal measure of safety” for Israelis and Palestinians. Palestinian man shot dead after he stabbed an Isreali soldier.
🇼🇸 Drama in Samoa: New prime minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa took her oath outside the parliament after caretaker govt refused to give up power.
🚫 Anti-Asia: Canada capital Vancouver was dubbed the “anti-Asian hate crime capital of North America” for the surge in hate crime. On May 20, Biden signed a bill called Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.
🇲🇲 Myanamar: Aung Sang Su Kyi makes first appearance in court after coup on February 1; US editor of a Myanmar-based news outlet detained at airport.
🇪🇺🇧🇾 EU’s Wrath: After Belarus’s forced landing of a plane to arrest a person, other countries call on airlines to stop flying over the country and began process of barring Belarusian airlines over EU nations. But Belarus has Russia backing.
🇮🇷⚛️ Nuke Relief: Iran agrees to give UN atomic agency access to monitor its nuclear programme till it can negotiate a deal with the US and other powers.
🚨 Trigger Happy: US Texas likely to see more liberalized gun laws – no need for licence or training or checks -despite state’s violent history of shootings.
🤳 Florida Tech Law: Bill that states social media companies can ban politicians only for max 14 days now a law and effective from July 1.
🗳️ Opinion Poll: Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls suggest most Republicans believe Donald Trump to still be the true President.
🥳👯♂️🎉 Projet X: A 17-year-old’s invitation to his birthday party went viral in the US and 1,000 people showed up. The gathering of such people were illegal though and police had to fire non lethal rounds.
🇵🇪 Massacre: 14 people, including children, were killed in a Peruvian town allegedly by a Maoist group that was believed to have been crushed.
SCIENCE
👁️ You See Me: Scientists have been able to genetically alter certain cells in the eye–optogenetics- so that they produce light sensitive algae proteins. A blind man can now count and recognise things in front of him.
News Of Today 