India needs less slanging matches and more debates on key issues January 9, 2021, 9:36 PM IST
The writer is an architect.
Recently when the French parliament prepared a draft of the Religious Rights Bill, it was prompted by two years of debate and multiple terrorist blasts that killed more than 200 people in the past eight years. The practice of religion within the French constitution’s right to free expression was particularly difficult to define, for it tried to balance both the traditions of Islamic practice and the government’s ability to intervene in potential threats to public safety. The carefully worded document was vetted by legislators and Islamic scholars and was the subject of a vociferous public debate, now awaiting ratification.
Dubai: The word “quarantine” may have been introduced into people’s lexicon for the first time in 2020, but for 100-year-old Jagjit Singh and his wife Sudershan Kaur, 92, that buzzword evoked vivid memories of when their son contracted polio over 60 years ago.
“It was the most crucial time for us and it could have changed all our lives forever,” said Singh, a retired colonel. At the time, he was stationed in the city of Jamnagar when polio cases were on the rise. “In the morning, I had issued a circular to all the people of Jamnagar on how to tackle and handle polio,” he said, before his wife quickly interjected that their nine-year-old son had called for help from the bedroom that very same night. “He said, ‘Mom, I can’t get up. I can’t get up. And I have to go to the bathroom’. I was worried because he could not move his legs,” said Kaur.
Mumbai slum development project gets HC nod, relief to Shapoorji group hindustantimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hindustantimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In good news on Christmas Day, Dharavi, one of Asia’s largest slums and once a major Covid hotspot, reported zero cases on Friday.
MUMBAI: In good news on Christmas Day, Dharavi, one of Asia’s largest slums and once a major Covid hotspot , reported zero cases on Friday.
This is the first time since April 1, when the first coronavirus case was reported in Dharavi’s Baliga Nagar, that the dense slum pocket has had no new case in a day. Till date, there have been 3,788 cases and 312 deaths.
Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of the state’s task force on Covid-19, said this could be indicative of herd immunity that had developed in certain thickly populated pockets of the city. “If a sero survey is conducted in Dharavi or a similarly populous area today, it is likely to show that over 70% to 80% of the population has antibodies,” he said.
MUMBAI: In the growing anti-vaccine din, eight out of 10 slum-dwellers surveyed around Cuffe Parade said they would be willing to take the vaccine against the Covid-19-causing coronavirus if and when it becomes available.
However, a closer look at the survey results showed that a third of the 60-plus residents were not in favour of vaccination. One in four housewives said she wouldn’t want to take the vaccine, according to the survey, perhaps the first of its kind in slums.
This is unfortunate because the 60-plus age group is most vulnerable to Covid-19 and mothers mould their families’ decisions, said Dr Nishant Kumar, founder of the NGO Eyebetes Foundation that conducted the survey among 1,352 residents.