With vaccines now more freely available, state governments in Goa and Gujarat are taking measures to ensure nothing like the second wave happens again – insisting that people get vaccinated rather than encouraging. The much-awaited Centre’s meeting with J-K has finally begun with many leaders saying they got off to a good start. Shocking news from Canada where many graves had been found at another school, and in Burkina Faso where child soldiers were supposedly behind a massacre.
CORONAVIRUS NEWS
💉⚠️ State’s Warning: Gujarat has asked businesses to get their staff vaccinated in 18 cities/towns by June 30, and everyone else by July 10, else face shutdown. Goa, meanwhile is planning on making it mandatory for tourists to ensure both doses and negative RT-PCR test.
👎 Poor Cover: Of the nearly 400,000 deaths in India, only 14% claimed insurance.
🌊🌊🌊?: Maharashtra is recording close to 10K cases once again. Chief Minister says there will be no more relaxations.
✈️💉 Airline Warning: Cathay Pacific has warned its staff that they have to get both doses of vaccines by August 31 or risk losing their jobs.
The emperor (Naruhito) is extremely worried about the current status of coronavirus infections. Given the public’s worries, he appears to be concerned about whether the event (Tokyo Olympics) would cause infections to spread.
Yasuhiko Nishimura, grand steward of the Imperial Household Agency.
(Image: Japan Emperor Naruhito)
Once Upon A Time: Virus infections over time leave a mark on human DNA that evolves to provide resistance to such viruses. Scientists used a technique to find that in East Asia, such an epidemic had struck 20,000 years ago and its mark is still in people from the region.
INDIA NEWS
The meeting between J-K leaders and Centre on Thursday lasted 3hrs and 30 mins. Article 370 was not discussed as it was ‘sub judice’. (Pic: @narendramodi/Twitter)
Our priority is to strengthen grassroots democracy in J&K. Delimitation has to happen at a quick pace so that polls can happen and J&K gets an elected Government that gives strength to J&K’s development trajectory.
Narendra Modi, Prime Minister
We are committed to ensure all round development of J&K. The future of J&K was discussed and the delimitation exercise and peaceful elections are important milestones in restoring statehood as promised in parliament.
Amit Shah, Home Minister
Meeting was good…. the most important issue is statehood… reassure the people that their historical domiciliary rights concerning land will be protected… rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits.
Ghulam Nabi Azad, Congress
The way the BJP struggled for 70 years to abolish Article 370… the people of J&K will democratically, constitutionally and peacefully struggle to reinstate it… because this is a question of our identity.
Mehbooba Mufit, PDP chief
If exercise of August 5, 2019 was to bring J&K on par with the rest of the country… then by having a delimitation exercise independent of the rest … you have set us apart from the rest of the country.
Omar Abdullah, National Conference
There is a loss of trust which needs to be restored and for that, to begin with, Centre should work for restoration of statehood to J&K. I said that it means reverting even the IAS and IPS cadres of J&K
Farooq Abdullah, NC chief
🔎 Investigation: NHRC teams have begun their probe into post-poll violence in Bengal on the orders of the Calcutta high court.
🇮🇳🇰🇿🇨🇳🇰🇬🇵🇰🇷🇺🇹🇯🇺🇿 Pak Listening: At the SCO meeting in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, India National Security Adviser Ajit Doval says there needs to be action against groups like LeT and Jaish in the SCO framework. Doval also said there needs to be an understanding between the group and FATF (currently discussing Pak’s terror financing record).
👩⚖️ No Need (for now): Karnatak High Court has asked UP Police not to take “coercive” action against Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari and asked them to collect info over video instead. Earlier, cops had demanded he be present in-person to give statement on the incident in which an elderly man was beaten up in Ghaziabad.
Want to Talk: Congress MP Digvijaya Singh said he had sought to talk about the Central Vista in a Parliamentary panel for urban development but was denied by the chairperson who said it was all in public domain. He will now approach the Speaker.
😱 Crime: So-called “honour killing” in Karnataka where a Muslim teenage girl’s family allegedly killed her and her Dalit friend over their “relationship”.
WORLD NEWS
⚰️ Grave Schools: Weeks after the remains of 215 kids were found under a former school for indigenous run by the church in Canada, 751 unmarked graves found under another former Catholic school.
💔😞 Child Soldiers: Children between ages 12 and 14 carried out the massacre in Burkina Faso earlier this month in which over 130 were killed, says the country’s government and the UN. They were allegedly part of Islamist extremist group.
🇪🇺🏳️🌈🇭🇺 Too Much, Bro: European Union accosted Hungary for passing an anti-homosexuality law that would criminalise educating children on homosexuality.
Four-day Week: Japan has proposed four-day working week in its new economic policy.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY NEWS
🤑 PNB Again: The day that PNB Housing issued preferrential allotment of shares in a bid to raise Rs 4,000 crore, many of its executives sold their shares as their share price had doubled. This has raised concern of insider trading, although firm says no.
🛢️🤳📶🌳 Reliance AGM: Chaiperson Mukesh Ambani hopes that the company will be able to seal a partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Aramco later this year, announces “extremely affordable” smartphone JioPhone Next in partnership with Google, will invest $10bn dollars to become a net-zero energy company, and Jio and Google Cloud are partnering to introduce 5G to India.
⬇️ Going Down: After Moody’s cut GDP growth for India to 9.3% from 13.9%, SAP cuts it to 9.5% from 11%. RBI too had earlier cut from 10% to 9.5%.
✊ No Man, then Ban: US has decided to ban import of solar panels and silicon products from China’s Xinjiang province where the country is accused of abusing human rights for the residne Uyghur Muslims.
ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE & TECH
🪟 Windows 11: With Microsoft’s latest operating system users can run Android apps on their desktop with smaller and faster security updates.
💀 Ancient Human: Nesher Ramla Homo populated the Earth over 400,000 years ago and are considered to be ancestors of Neandrathals. Remains were found in Israel.
NEWS OF YESTERDAY
Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl was first published in the Netherlands on this day in 1947
News Of Today 