Daily briefing: Why Centre changed its mind on flights; al-Qaeda operative lands in Amritsar

Written by Liu Chuen Chen
, Leela Prasad
| New Delhi |

Updated: May 22, 2020 9:19:11 am

A look at the top news today, May 22, 2020.

Dear Reader,

On May 17, the Centre, in its revised guidelines for lockdown 4.0, said domestic air travel will remain prohibited till May 31. But in just three days, it had a change of mind. The reason: An imminent threat of more than one airline folding up, both on account of the extended lockdown and little to no relief in the economic package.

Bonus reading: Aviation ministry has introduced fare caps — notably, they do not include the additional fees and taxes

A special flight from the US that landed in Amritsar on May 19 was carrying 167 deportees. Among them was a convicted al-Qaeda operative from Hyderabad. As he serves the mandatory 14-day quarantine, intelligence agencies mull over their options.

Data on Chinese transgressions into the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) show there has been a marked increase in the western sector, which falls in Ladakh. Officials contend that they occur because both the militaries try to patrol the area up to their respective perceptions of the LAC, but concede that the Chinese are coming to the Indian side more often.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be travelling to Odisha and West Bengal to hold an aerial survey of the devastation caused by Cyclone Amphan which claimed 72 lives. Track our live coverage here

The threat of hunger, evictions and unemployment created by the COVID fear and subsequent lockdown forced hundreds of thousands to return from the city to their native place. However, Uttarakhand’s ‘ghost villages’ are symptomatic of what forced them out in the first place. Not one of the more than two lakh residents of the state who have registered to return have opted for its 1,700-odd “nirjan” villages, areas with no road connectivity or opportunities, which now house just one-two families.

In today’s oped, senior advocate Justice Fali Nariman lauds the “humanitarian approach” of a division bench of the Karnataka High Court who had recently questioned the state government’s decision not to fund the travel of migrant workers if their home states do not deposit funds for train fares. “Like Abou Ben Adhem (in the poem by James Hunt) ‘May their tribe increase’,” he writes.

In poll-bound Bihar, high-decibel political activities are on hold, given the pandemic and the unprecedented reverse migration. But BJP leaders pointed out that the initiatives of the government and party would “eventually create goodwill for the party”.

On Sunday, India decided to keep schools closed for another two weeks. In Europe, millions of children have begun returning to classrooms. Will reopening make children vulnerable? Are there any findings to suggest that school reopening has led to a rise in cases in Europe? We try to answer these questions.

The World Health Organisation has poured water over the claims on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in treating Covid-19. Its warning comes two days after US President Donald Trump said he is on the drug, and at a time when India is going through heated discussions within the government on whether to reconsider its use.

With cricket suspended around the globe, a tiny corner of the Caribbean has started its own league, with all health protocols to be risk-free from any Covid-19 interruption. But before they start putting their talent on display, we take a look at a few old habits the players will have to unlearn before they begin internalising new ones.

🔊 In today’s Three Things podcast, we look at issues that cropped up in Delhi’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Until tomorrow,

Leela Prasad G and Liu Chuen Chen

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US administration wants Indian students to visit America for studies: Wells - education

COVID-19 has created enormous anxiety and uncertainty but the US administration wants that Indian students come to the country for study, a senior American diplomat told a Washington DC-based think tank on Wednesday.

Alice Wells, the outgoing Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, however, said presently visas are not being processed due to the pandemic.

“So this is going to be an issue that I think we have to muddle our way through,” she told the former US Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, during a virtual discussion held by the Atlantic Council. Over 200,000 Indian students study in various American universities and they constitute the second largest group of foreign students in the US after China. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, almost all educational institutions are shut during the spring break, which has now been extended for the rest of the academic year till August.

“COVID-19 has created enormous anxiety and uncertainty for both American and foreign students alike, We need to ensure that as conditions allow, we do everything possible to keep that upward trajectory of Indian students in the United States, which last year topped over 200,000,” Wells said, adding that they needed to do everything possible in the present circumstances. ‘ “We’re going to, have to, approach this with an open mind,” she said, adding that the students act as ambassadors between the countries and their goal is to have Indian students in the US.

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China engaged in provocative, coercive military activities with neighbours, including India: White House report

By: PTI | Washington |

Published: May 22, 2020 8:26:21 am

Chinese President Xi Jinping applauds during the opening session of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Friday, May 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

China is engaged in provocative and coercive military and paramilitary activities with neighbouring countries including India, the White House said on Thursday, a day after a top American diplomat backed India’s move to strongly resist Chinese aggression into its territory.

“Beijing contradicts its rhetoric and flouts its commitments to its neighbours by engaging in provocative and coercive military and paramilitary activities in the Yellow Sea, the East and South China Seas, the Taiwan Strait, and Sino-Indian border areas,” the White House said in a report.

The report, ‘United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China’, submitted to the Congress was required by the National Defense Authorization Act 2019, which mandated a whole-of-government strategy with respect to China.

“As China has grown in strength, so has the willingness and capacity of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to employ intimidation and coercion in its attempts to eliminate perceived threats to its interests and advance its strategic objectives globally,” the report stated.

“Beijing’s actions belie Chinese leaders’ proclamations that they oppose the threat or use of force, do not intervene in other countries’ internal affairs, or are committed to resolving disputes through peaceful dialogue,” it said.

A day earlier a top Trump Administration diplomat backed India’s move to strongly push back Chinese aggression into its territory by saying that the latter’s pattern of constant attempt to shift the status quo has to be resisted.

“If you look to the South China Sea, there’s a method here to Chinese operation. It is that constant aggression, the constant attempt to shift the norms, to shift what is the status quo. That has to be resisted, whether it’s in the South China sea where we’ve done a group sail with India, or whether it’s in India’s own backyard, both, on land as well as in the Indian ocean,” Alice Wells, the outgoing Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, told a Washington DC-based think tank.

“For anyone is under any illusions about that Chinese aggression was only rhetorical and I think they need to speak to India where India, on a weekly, monthly, but certainly a very regular basis, has to experience the pinpricks of a Chinese military,” Wells said.

“It is a reminder of what’s at stake in building a world order that and sustaining a world order that respects, sovereignty, territorial integrity, as well as respects the rules of international trade, that have allowed again so many hundreds of millions to be lifted out of poverty,” she said.

China attempts to dominate the global information and communications technology industry through unfair practices is reflected in discriminatory regulations like the National Cyber Security Law, which requires companies to comply with Chinese data localization measures that enable CCP access to foreign data, it said.

Prevailing in strategic competition with China requires cooperative engagement with multiple stakeholders, and the administration is committed to building partnerships to United States Strategic Approach to protect their shared interests and values.

The United States, the White House said, is also building cooperative partnerships and developing positive alternatives with foreign allies, partners, and international organizations to support the shared principles of a free and open order.

According to the White House, the United States is working in concert with mutually aligned visions and approaches such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nation’s Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, Japan’s free and open Indo-Pacific vision, India’s Security and Growth for All in the Region policy, Australia’s Indo-Pacific concept, the Republic of Korea’s New Southern Policy, and Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy.

“Guided by a return to principled realism, the United States is responding to the CCP’s direct challenge by acknowledging that we are in a strategic competition and protecting our interests appropriately,” the White House said.

House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Mac Thornberry said that the Administration’s report is a good first start to articulating a whole of government approach to China.

“Only by focusing on all elements of national power can we effectively compete with China and deter China’s malign activity in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world. The strategy also reinforces the need to invest in the military elements of that strategy, as well as increased engagement with our allies and partners,” he said.

Congressman Mike Rogers, House Homeland Security Committee ranking member said that the Chinese Communist Party represents an existential threat to democratic values across the globe.

“Their totalitarian rule crushes human rights, undermines democratic institutions, and threatens our way of life,” he said. China’s policy of targeting critical infrastructure, exploiting America’s world-class educational institutions, and state-sponsored intellectual property theft will continue to present a challenge that the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, and other federal agencies will combat for the foreseeable future, Rogers added.

In another statement, Congressman Michael McCaul, Republican Leader on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, applauded the White House for recognizing the need to return to ‘principled realism’ with respect to CCP.

“The CCP has always framed its relationship with the United States as a great power competition, and we can no longer deny this reality. With this strategic approach, the Trump Administration is setting out to reverse decades of complacency towards the CCP and to better secure American leadership on the world stage,” Rogers said.

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Set up helplines for school fee disputes: Parents to Maharashtra education department - education

As several schools in the city continue to demand full payment of fees from parents despite a government resolution that asks them not to do so, parents are now urging the state government to come up with a helpline to address these issues.

Recently, Shiv Sena’s student wing Yuva Sena wrote to the state education department urging them to come up with district wise helpline numbers where parents could call and complain. “While the government has asked schools to not force parents to pay full fees, many private schools in the state are not paying heed and are pressurising parents to pay the full amount. In the current situation, such parents cannot go anywhere to complain and thus there should be helplines where they can just make a call and record their grievances,” said Sainath Durge, core-team member of Yuva Sena.

Queries sent to officials at the education department did not get a response.

On May 8, the education department had asked schools to allow parents to make partial payments of fees for 2019-20 and 2020-21 considering the current situation. Schools were also asked to stay all fee hikes awere advised to reduce fees in cases where the expenditure has gone down due to the lockdown. The GR is applicable for all schools under the state irrespective of the board they are affiliated with.

Recently, several parents took to twitter and said that schools were not willing to give them a concession. “A school in Goregaon has asked parents to pay up the full amount with no facility of monthly payments. When parents tried to reason, they were told to pay or lose admission ,” said a parent.

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Homecoming season 2: Amazon Prime Video series remains engrossing and taut

Written by Kshitij Rawat
| New Delhi |

Published: May 22, 2020 7:04:53 am

Homecoming season 2 is streaming on Amazon Prime Video. (Photo: Amazon)

Amazon Prime Video’s psychological thriller series Homecoming, based on a podcast of the same name by Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg, had a tightly written, well-paced and brilliantly acted inaugural season. Its conclusion, despite a few loose ends, felt mostly complete. It was a bittersweet ending, but an ending all the same.

And now we have a second season. If this seems to you that Amazon is cashing on the critical reception and popularity of the original season, you can rest assured that it is not. The plans for the second season were clearly laid out when the first one was in pre-production as many scenes from the first season get more context here.

Homecoming is about a titular facility established under a government contract by a certain Geist Group. While it promises rehabilitation for soldiers coming back home from overseas wars, it instead does something downright sinister and even evil. The soldiers housed in the facility are fed medicated food that erases their memory altogether. So instead of something like PTSD, there is no ill effect of the war — only there is a blank spot spanning several years. The ultimate purpose of the programme is to redeploy them and continue the cycle.

The first season had Roberts’ Heidi Bergman as the manager of the facility. She fell in love with one of the soldiers, Walter Cruz (Stephan James), eventually realised the horrors of what was done to him and others, and quit — but not before overdosing herself and Cruz with the medicine.

Janelle Monáe in a still from Homecoming season 2. (Photo: Amazon)

The sophomore outing tells a new story set in the same world from the perspective of a new protagonist, Janelle Monáe’s Alex, who finds herself adrift on a boat in the middle of a lake, wholly unaware of her whereabouts, or even who she is. She begins retracting her steps to find out what happened to her.

James’ Walter is the only major character that returns from the original season. While it felt like he was blissfully unaware of what was done to him in the finale of the first season, he gets flashes of the memories he has now lost and decides to find out the truth. Alex and Walter’s search eventually coincides, and it leads to the shady Geist Group.

The second season does not have the charismatic presence of Julia Roberts and Sam Ismail’s direction, though both are still listed as executive producers. But the writing saves the day. And the runtime of around 30 minutes really helps, especially since the pacing is just right. It does have its contemplative moments, but they never feel like a drag.

Chris Cooper in Homecoming season 2. (Photo: Amazon)

The new cast members were excellent. Chris Cooper as the owner of Geist was a surprise — both because it was intended to be so and also because Cooper did a sublime job in fleshing out a fairly minor character and make it way more impactful than it would have been otherwise. So much so that he was my the highlight for me this season. Hong Chau’s talents I have already witnessed in Watchmen, and she was great here as well. Joan Cusack also impressed in her minor role as a slimy government official, though I do wish she was the Big Bad this season.

Homecoming season 2 feel fresh and is as compulsive a watch as the first season.

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Top 5 job skills to future proof your career post-Covid - education

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a curveball that has brought entire countries to their knees. With lockdowns and forced social distancing, we’ve seen industries come to a standstill as people are forced to stay indoors. As society at large tries to grapple with the extent of the impact, technology has in many ways, emerged as the saviour. Among other things, it has allowed people to work from home, people to shop from the comfort of their homes. It has enabled governments to monitor and take targeted action to curb the spread of the virus.

In many ways, this pandemic has helped demonstrate the power of technologies such as cloud and big data, exposed cybersecurity risks, and has helped businesses visualize new ways to use data effectively.

While the pandemic will certainly spur a digital transformation, here are a few areas where we can expect greater job opportunities to open up in the next few months/years.

Data

With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing a large chunk of people to work from home, we’ve witnessed a huge spike in data usage across the globe. Statistics indicate that global data usage has increased as much as 38 percent year-on-year in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Already, job opportunities for data engineers, data analysts, data scientists, and ML/AI engineers were growing steadily. With the surge in data usage, we can expect this demand to go up even more quickly.

Cloud

The Public Cloud has emerged as the backbone of all IT infrastructure. Even back in November 2019, Gartner had predicted that the worldwide public cloud services market would grow 17% in 2020. According to a study by Instinet in March 2020, 68 percent of CIOs say that migrating to Cloud is a top priority. The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to accelerate cloud migration even more. We can foresee a greater demand for cloud architects and cloud IT admins.

Cybersecurity

A recent study reveals that 86 percent of CIOs consider security to be their #1 priority. With ‘remote working’ becoming the norm post-COVID, company data is even more at risk. With people relying more on personal or less secure wi-fi networks, the threat levels have increased. As cybersecurity becomes more critical, we will see a much greater demand for security architects and ethical hackers.

Digital Marketing

With more people consuming information online, digital marketing has become a lifeline for CMOs as they seek to reduce marketing spends, drive greater ROI from their marketing dollars, and follow their customers online. In turn, this will result in greater demand for PPC practitioners, digital brand managers, content & SEO experts, CRM, and email marketing specialists.

Business Analysts

As businesses accelerate the shift to digital, digital channels will become increasingly mainstream across sectors such as retail, education, healthcare, and others. As the demand for digital goes up, it will result in greater demand for Business Analysts. Estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, demand for management analysts, including business analysts, is likely to grow 14 percent, between 2018 to 2028.

The Covid-19 pandemic is accelerating change towards a new normal, and it is best for all of us to adapt fast. Some of the changes to our lives are becoming clear – significantly higher importance to aspects of health and hygiene which many of us used to take for granted, major changes to social habits, a complete re-think on what we do for leisure and entertainment are just some of the adjustments all of us are grappling with.

On the work front the shake up is equally disruptive. As our lifestyles change in the Post-Covid era, the shift towards digital is going to be complete and immediate. And while a wide range of jobs are at significant risk from the economic downturn we are entering, digital and tech jobs will continue to see the growth they have seen in the last 2 decades – in fact this growth will accelerate. Getting skilled in these digital skills is one way to ensure that while you adapt to the other changes in your life, at least your Career is on a growth track and Future proof.

(Author Kashyap Dalal is a Co-founder and Chief Business Officer at Simplilearn. Views expressed here are personal.)

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Two NDRF teams from Pune airlifted for relief work in cyclone-hit Bengal

By: Express News Service | Pune |

Published: May 22, 2020 5:55:01 am

Each battalion of the NDRF has 18 self-contained specialist search and rescue teams of 45 personnel including engineering, technicians, electricians, dog squads and paramedics, (Representational Photo)

TWO teams from the Pune-based 5th Battalion of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were airlifted on Thursday by an Air Force aircraft for deployment in West Bengal for evacuation, rescue and relief operations in areas hit by Cyclone Amphan.

An officer from the Battalion said the IAF transport aircraft carrying two NDRF teams took off from the Lohegaon Air Force base in Pune around 7.30 pm and is slated to be deployed in Amphan-affected areas after landing at Kolkata.

“This is a crucial deployment for NDRF, considering the fact that the teams will be facing two emergencies simultaneously, one that of the visible cyclone and another of the invisible Covid-19. Taking this into account, teams have been equipped and sensitised accordingly. NDRF has been training and equipping itself since the outbreak of Covid-19 to face and gear up for such complex emergencies. We have reformulated and tweaked our SoPs to operate in such situations.” said Sachchidanand Gawade, deputy commandant of the 5th Battalion.

Each battalion of the NDRF has 18 self-contained specialist search and rescue teams of 45 personnel including engineering, technicians, electricians, dog squads and paramedics. The total strength of each battalion is 1,150. One such battalion – 5th Battalion – is stationed at Sudumbare near Talegaon Dabhade in Pune district.

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