巴拉特

分类： bharat

  • Panic in Mumbai to alert in Delhi: Locusts ravage Rajasthan, more invasions predicted

    Already crippled by a dwindling economy besieged by the coronavirus pandemic, millions of swarming locusts ravaging their crops is the worst nightmare farmers in North India could have possibly had. But it has turned out to be true.

    Farmers in Rajasthan, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra are in the midst of the worst locust attack in the last 27 years.

    The locusts, which arrived late last year into Rajasthan from Pakistan, have affected thousands of farmers in several states in northern and central India.

    Authorities in Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka too sounded alerts Thursday to the possibility of locusts entering their territories while United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned that the pests could reach as far east as Bihar and Odisha in the coming weeks.

    What is locust attack

    India is battling the worst desert locust outbreak in recent times. According to experts, broadly four species of locusts are found in India desert locust, migratory locust, Bombay locust and tree locust. The desert locust is considered the most destructive.

    It multiplies very rapidly and is capable of covering 150 kilometers in a day.

    This insect, a type of grasshopper, can eat more than its body weight. A one square kilometer of locust swarm containing around 40 million locusts can in a day eat as much food as 35,000 people.

    Experts blame the growing menace of desert locusts on climate change. They say breeding of locusts is directly related to soil moisture and food availability.

    States stung by locust attack

     

    Hundreds of millions of locusts, in what has been a fresh attack on Monday, flew over large swathes of land in Rajasthan from where they reached bordering regions of Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

    Locusts have already destroyed crops spread over at least 90,000 hectares of land, mostly in western and eastern Rajasthan. The districts adversely affected by the largescale attacks by locusts include Sri Ganganagar, Jaisalmer, Barmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur, Churu and Nagaur, Ajmer, Jaipur and Dausa. The dreaded locust attack has not spared Rajasthan’s capital as millions of locusts were seen swarming over Jaipur on Monday.

  • Kerala snake bite murder: Investigation team to extract DNA of animal as evidence

    In what has become the first instance in the history of the state, Kerala Police has conducted the postmortem of a snake carcass in connection with the death of a woman.

    25-year-old Uthra had died due to a snake bite on May 7. A detailed probe revealed that the death was, in fact, a murder plotted by her husband who had bought the snake.

    The investigation team probing matter reached the premises of Uthra’s house in Anchal where the snake carcass was buried.

    The team comprising forensic scientists, policemen and forest officials carried out the postmortem of the snake carcass. The DNA of the snake will be extracted and used for the investigation.

    Kerala DGP Loknath Behra said that the this is a peculiar case and investigation will be carried out in a scientific manner.

    “For the first time in a case, we are conducting a DNA test of a dead snake for the investigation. The test will be done outside the state most probably Chennai or Hyderabad. I have also directed the investigation team to file the chargesheet within 90 days”, Behra told media.

    Uthra was brought dead at a private hospital in Kerala on May 7. In the autopsy, it was revealed that she died due to snakebite.

    Later that day, a cobra was found inside Uthra and her husband Sooraj’s bedroom.

    The probe revealed that Uthra was earlier bitten by a snake in March this year while at her husband’s house.

    This raised quite a few eyebrows, leading the investigation team into probing the case thoroughly.

    Parents of the woman had approached the police saying there was something suspicious about the death of their daughter.

    Police said that money was the actual motive behind the crime. Though Sooraj received a huge amount of money and gold as dowry, he wasn’t satisfied with Uthra. He wanted to take the money and find a better partner.

    Police found digital evidence on the man’s mobile phone using which he had been watching snake-related videos on YouTube since the last three months, apparently to get trained in handling them.

    Police said Sooraj bought Russell’s viper from a snake-seller Suresh and on March 2 he attempted to kill his wife at their house in Adoor using the snake.

    Uthra was hospitalised and discharged on April 22 after which she had returned to her parent’s home in Anchal in Kollam district.

  • In its latest update, the Centre said the Covid-19 death toll has risen to 4,167 and the number of cases has climbed to 1,45,380 in the country

    In its latest update, the Centre said the Covid-19 death toll has risen to 4,167 and the number of cases has climbed to 1,45,380 in the country

    The nationwide tally of Covid-19 cases crossed 1.45 lakh on Tuesday with states like Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Odisha reporting a significant rise in their numbers amid the large-scale return of migrant workers from other states.

    The numbers also rose further in the worst-hit states including Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, while Delhi, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, among other states and union territories, also reported more new cases.

    Indian Railways has ferried over 44 lakh migrant workers on board 3,276 ‘Shramik Special’ trains since May 1. According to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri, an additional 41,673 people had traveled to their home states via flights till 5 pm on Tuesday.

    To control the fresh spike in cases created by the mass movement, several states on Tuesday announced mandatory institutional quarantine on arrival for all.

    Meanwhile, the Supreme Court directed the central and state government to immediately provide adequate transport arrangements, food and shelters free of cost to migrant labourers stranded across the country due to the Covid-19 lockdown.

    Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that the Modi government failed in controlling Covid-19 outbreak through the nationwide lockdown. The Congress leader asked the Centre to share it’s Plan B to contain the pandemic.

    Fresh spike in cases due to migrant movement

    Several states have been attributing the increase in their tallies to the arrival of people from outside in special trains, being run since May 1 to ferry migrant workers to their native places, and special international flights that began on May 1 to bring back stranded Indians and expatriates from abroad. Besides, domestic flights have also begun since Monday in a phased manner.

    During a review meeting on the Covid-19 situation in Odisha, which saw its tally rising to 1,517 with 79 new cases, CM Naveen Patnaik said a new strategy would be needed to deal with the pandemic.

    “With flight and train services having been restored, the next 15 to 30 days will be challenging, but I am sure we will be able to handle it all in a professional manner,” he said.

    Over 40 thousand passengers return home via flights

    Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri said that at least 41,673 passengers had returned to their home states by 5 pm on Tuesday – day 2 of flight operations in India since the lockdown on March 25.

    Hardeep Puri said that airports in India handled 325 departures and 283 arrivals by Tuesday evening.

    Even as the minister claimed smooth operations on the airports, a case of Covid-19 among passengers on a flight to Coimbatore had set off the alarm bells. A doctor, who travelled on Chennai-Coimbatore Indigo flight Monday, later tested positive for novel coronavirus. The doctor has been shifted to ESI Hospital for treatment and flight staff has been grounded for 14 days, while the airlines is tracing everyone who was on the flight with the doctor.

    Rahul Gandhi terms lockdown failure

    Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the four phases of the nationwide lockdown have “failed” and not given the results that Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected.

    Addressing an online press conference, he urged the Centre to spell out its strategy for “opening up” the country and expressed concern that India is the only country which is relaxing the lockdown when the virus is “exponentially rising”. 

    The ruling BJP, however, said the doubling rate of coronavirus infection has fallen to 13 days from three before the lockdown and called it a “success” of India.

    BJP leader and Union minister Prakash Javadekar said the Modi government’s decision to impose the lockdown has ensured that India suffered much less than countries like the US, France and Spain. He took a swipe at the Congress, saying it is doing politics at a time when the nation is fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.