As scientists race to find a vaccine for the deadly COVID-19 virus that has claimed about one lakh lives across the globe, the Indian government is claiming ancient Ayurveda and Homoeopathic remedies could hold an answer. But a parliamentary committee has exposed the lackadaisical attitude of the Government in promoting the nonformal medicine systems in the country and raised questions about the seriousness of the Central Government as the Ayush Ministry has faced a reduction in allocation of funds in recent years.

Parliamentary Standing committee, headed by Samajwadi Party leader of Rajya Sabha Ram Gopal Yadav, on Health and Family welfare has submitted report on the budgetary allocation of the Ministry of the year 2020-21.  The committee finds that the projected demand of funds of the Ministry of AYUSH was to the tune of Rs. 5035.27 crores for 2020-21. However, the Ministry has been allocated only Rs. 2122.08 crores only, thus leaving a shortfall of Rs. 2913.19 crores. Similar situation prevailed last year also as is evident from the allocation of funds by the Finance ministry. In the year 2019-20  Budget ministry projected a demand of Rs 4469 crores and the allotted amount was Rs 1939 crores.

The Secretary of the Ministry  while deposing before the Committee highlighted the fact that the projected requirement of the Ministry was realistic as the Ministry needed the allocation to tide over funds constraints. But as the funds allotted were less and the major areas that will be affected due to the slashed allocation  for 2020-21 as informed by the Ministry are flagship programmes of National Ayush Mission, Health and wellness center and other major programmes.

The Ministry submitted to the committee that it has made continuous and persistent efforts for adequate budgetary support. The efforts started during the pre-budget discussions with the Ministry of Finance held on November 8 last year  followed by a meeting of Secretary (AYUSH) with Secretary (Expenditure) on January 2 and January 30 this year. The Secretary (AYUSH) again took up the matter with the Secretary (Economic Affairs)  and even by personally meeting him again. Minister of State of Ayush Sripada Nayak  also held a meeting with the Finance Minister on  January  9 this year to apprise him of the situation and requested for enhancement of the allocation under RE 2019-20 as well as BE 2020-21. Due to these efforts the Ministry of Finance increased the RE allocation from Rs.1756.83 crore to Rs.1857.00 crore. However, no additional funds have been provided in BE 2020-21.

In a scathing comment, the Committee has put on record its disappointment and said “the committee is constrained to note that several schemes of the ministry would be effected due to shortfall offunds.”

The committee went on to say that it apprehends that the objective of important schemes like National Ayush Mission Health and wellness centers would not be fulfilled due to financial constraints. Moreover, several research projects, construction work of National Institute and Research Councils would also get affected.

The Committee took note of the submission of the Ministry to make up the shortfall of funds by seeking a loan of Rs.1000 crore from Higher Education Funding Agency to support, in particular, the 8 construction projects of National Institutes. The Committee said it was surprising to note that financial constraints have forced the Ministry to raise loans which show that the Government is not very serious about promoting AYUSH and letting it emerge as an alternative and economical system of medicine.

(Writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi)

Imagine you’ve been diagnosed as Covid-19 positive. Health officials begin contact tracing to contain infections, asking you to identify people with whom you’ve been in close contact. The obvious people come to mind — your family, your coworkers. But what about the woman ahead of you in line last week at the pharmacy, or the man bagging your groceries? Or any of the other strangers you may have come close to in the past 14 days?

A team led by MIT researchers and including experts from many institutions is developing a system that augments “manual” contact tracing by public health officials, while preserving the privacy of all individuals. The system relies on short-range Bluetooth signals emitted from people’s smartphones. These signals represent random strings of numbers, likened to “chirps” that other nearby smartphones can remember hearing.

If a person tests positive, they can upload the list of chirps their phone has put out in the past 14 days to a database. Other people can then scan the database to see if any of those chirps match the ones picked up by their phones. If there’s a match, a notification will inform that person that they may have been exposed to the virus, and will include information from public health authorities on next steps to take. Vitally, this entire process is done while maintaining the privacy of those who are Covid-19 positive and those wishing to check if they have been in contact with an infected person.

“I keep track of what I’ve broadcasted, and you keep track of what you’ve heard, and this will allow us to tell if someone was in close proximity to an infected person,” says Ron Rivest, MIT Institute Professor and principal investigator of the project. “But for these broadcasts, we’re using cryptographic techniques to generate random, rotating numbers that are not just anonymous, but pseudonymous, constantly changing their ‘ID,’ and that can’t be traced back to an individual.”

This approach to private, automated contact tracing will be available in a number of ways, including through the privacy-first effort launched at MIT in response to Covid-19 called SafePaths. This broad set of mobile apps is under development by a team led by Ramesh Raskar of the MIT Media Lab. The design of the new Bluetooth-based system has benefited from SafePaths’ early work in this area.

Bluetooth exchanges

Smartphones already have the ability to advertise their presence to other devices via Bluetooth. Apple’s “Find My” feature, for example, uses chirps from a lost iPhone or MacBook to catch the attention of other Apple devices, helping the owner of the lost device to eventually find it. 

“Find My inspired this system. If my phone is lost, it can start broadcasting a Bluetooth signal that’s just a random number; it’s like being in the middle of the ocean and waving a light. If someone walks by with Bluetooth enabled, their phone doesn’t know anything about me; it will just tell Apple, ‘Hey, I saw this light,’” says Marc Zissman, the associate head of MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Cyber Security and Information Science Division and co-principal investigator of the project.

With their system, the team is essentially asking a phone to send out this kind of random signal all the time and to keep a log of these signals. At the same time, the phone detects chirps it has picked up from other phones, and only logs chirps that would be medically significant for contact tracing — those emitted from within an approximate 6-foot radius and picked up for a certain duration of time, say 10 minutes.

Phone owners would get involved by downloading an app that enables this system. After a positive diagnosis, a person would receive a QR code from a health official. By scanning the code through that app, that person can upload their log to the cloud. Anyone with the app could then initiate their phones to scan these logs. A notification, if there’s a match, could tell a user how long they were near an infected person and the approximate distance.  

Privacy-preserving technology

Some countries most successful at containing the spread of Covid-19 have been using smartphone-based approaches to conduct contact tracing, yet the researchers note these approaches have not always protected individual’s privacy. South Korea, for example, has implemented apps that notify officials if a diagnosed person has left their home, and can tap into people’s GPS data to pinpoint exactly where they’ve been.

“We’re not tracking location, not using GPS, not attaching your personal ID or phone number to any of these random numbers your phone is emitting,” says Daniel Weitzner, a principal research scientist in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and co-principal investigator of this effort. “What we want is to enable everyone to participate in a shared process of seeing if you might have been in contact, without revealing, or forcing anyone to reveal, anything.”

Choice is key. Weitzner sees the system as a virtual knock on the door that preserves people’s right to not answer it. The hope, though, is that everyone who can opt in would do so to help contain the spread of Covid-19. “We need a large percentage of the population to opt in for this system to really work. We care about every single Bluetooth device out there; it’s really critical to make this a whole ecosystem,” he says.

Public health impact

Throughout the development process, the researchers have worked closely with a medical advisory team to ensure that this system would contribute effectively to contact tracing efforts. This team is led by Louise Ivers, who is an infectious disease expert, associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and executive director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health.

“In order for the U.S. to really contain this epidemic, we need to have a much more proactive approach that allows us to trace more widely contacts for confirmed cases. This automated and privacy-protecting approach could really transform our ability to get the epidemic under control here and could be adapted to have use in other global settings,” Ivers says. “What’s also great is that the technology can be flexible to how public health officials want to manage contacts with exposed cases in their specific region, which may change over time.”

For example, the system could notify someone that they should self-isolate, or it could request that they check in through the app to connect with specialists regarding daily symptoms and well-being. In other circumstances, public health officials could request that this person get tested if they were noticing a cluster of cases.

The ability to conduct contact tracing quickly and at a large scale can be effective not only in flattening the curve of the outbreak, but also for enabling people to safely enter public life once a community is on the downward side of the curve. “We want to be able to let people carefully get back to normal life while also having this ability to carefully quarantine and identify certain vectors of an outbreak,” Rivest says.

Toward implementation

Lincoln Laboratory engineers have led the prototyping of the system. One of the hardest technical challenges has been achieving interoperability, that is, making it possible for a chirp from an iPhone to be picked up by an Android device and vice versa. A test at the laboratory late last week proved that they achieved this capability, and that chirps could be picked up by other phones of various makes and models.

A vital next step toward implementation is engaging with the smartphone manufacturers and software developers — Apple, Google, and Microsoft. “They have a critical role here. The aim of the prototype is to prove to these developers that this is feasible for them to implement,” Rivest says. As those collaborations are forming, the team is also demonstrating its prototype system to state and federal government agencies.

Rivest emphasizes that collaboration has made this project possible. These collaborators include the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health, CSAIL, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Boston University, Brown University, MIT Media Lab, The Weizmann Institute of Science, and SRI International.

The team also aims to play a central, coordinating role with other efforts around the country and in Europe to develop similar, privacy-preserving contact-tracing systems.

“This project is being done in true academic style. It’s not a contest; it’s a collective effort on the part of many, many people to get a system working,” Rivest says.

Shlok Nair is an Entrepreneur, Celebrity Manager, and Musician. He is best known as the Former CEO of Okbronetwork, and Head of public relations at Dpiff (Dadasaheb Phalke Awards) since end of October, year 2017. 

The talented star, also seen in web series like Girl In The City, Bindaas Tv is in a steady relationship since his school times with a Nagpur based girl Aishwarya Dange, an Interior Architect/Landscape Designer in Mumbai and his Instagram stories speak volumes about their love life. 

On the occasion of ladylove Aishwarya’s birthday which is on 9th of April i.e today, NAIR as his first post/feed on his social media profile (Instagram) uploaded an image with miss Aishwarya where he also mentions ‘I am thankful to have her in my life, she never let me down & she is the closest ever!

“Wishing you sunny skies, long naps, and delicious cake on a special day, Happy Birthday Baby.” is the caption for the first post on his Instagram handle for Aishwarya’s birthday.

For the uninitiated, Shlok made his relationship public in December earlier 2017 sharing a picture of two of them together as his Instagram story, Shlok had written “Forever to go!” with a blood-red heart emoticon. Here’s a link to Shlok’s an official Instagram handle,

Isn’t the couple looking super-cute together?

Here’s wishing Aishwarya a very happy birthday!

In the unfortunate times of global crisis, the rise of Independent Social Workers has been a boon. Meet Palan is one of those few names that have truly contributed towards the society and its well being and is known for performing many roles and activities in the last few years.

Meet has worked and collaborated with several other organizations – to initiate and work on programs that help the needy all around India. He hails from Rajkot, which is regarded as one of the cleanest cities in India. The place has a certain cultural and historical value to it.

Mr. Palan, by his good deeds and work of the charity, has played a part in laying the foundation for donation and charity work in the city. His work with Ek Rang Children Development Institute was applauded and celebrated in an event that caught a lot of eyes.

He turned a lot of heads when he helped old-age people and children, by donating a whopping 51 Lakhs INR ( More than 67,000$ ) which is almost 10 times what an average Indian earns in their lifetime. 

His efforts were appreciated by Roshan Singh Sodhi, the police commissioner and even the MLA of his locality. He has proved his mettle and value to the city and has been instrumental towards building a better future for his community. All the very best to him for his future good ventures!

US President Donald Trump has said that he has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to release the amount of Hydroxychloroquine ordered by the United States after India last month banned the drugs for exports.

Trump said that he spoke to Prime Minister Modi on Saturday morning and made a request to release Hydroxychloroquine for the US.

“I called Prime Minister Modi of India this morning. They make large amounts of Hydroxychloroquine. India is giving it serious consideration,” Trump said at his daily news conference at the White House on Saturday.

India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade on March 25 banned the export of Hydroxychloroquine but said that certain shipments on humanitarian grounds may be allowed on a case-by-case basis.

Hydroxychloroquine is a prescription drug. It comes as an oral tablet.

Hydroxychloroquine is available as the brand-name drug Plaquenil. It’s also available in a generic version. Generic drugs usually cost less than the brand-name version. In some cases, they may not be available in every strength or form as the brand-name drug.

Hydroxychloroquine may be used as part of combination therapy. That means you may need to take it with other drugs.

Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial drug. It treats malaria by killing the parasites that cause the disease.

It isn’t fully understood how this drug works to treat lupus erythematosus or rheumatoid arthritis. However, it’s believed that this drug affects how your immune system works, which may be a benefit in lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis.

The initial results from a placebo-controlled trial of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 indicate that patients hospitalized with mild illness recovered more quickly with addition of the drug than with placebo at the start of a standard treatment. The results also suggest that hydroxychloroquine might convey some protection against the illness worsening.

Excitement around hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19 causes challenges for rheumatology : The Lancet

Excitement about a potential new treatment for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic currently engulfing the world is causing problems for patients with arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), who routinely use the drug to control their symptoms.

The antimalarial drug chloroquine and its safer derivative hydroxychloroquine have been used since the 1940s to treat autoimmune disorders, says Thomas Dörner, a rheumatologist at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin. Though the drug is rarely used for rheumatoid arthritis, around two-thirds of patients with SLE in Europe use hydroxychloroquine to manage their symptoms, and it is the only known therapy so far for primary Sjögren’s syndrome, he says.

But the drug has also attracted attention over the past few decades as a potential antiviral agent, currently as a possible treatment for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19. Reports from China found that chloroquine could inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, and showed apparent efficacy in treating COVID-19 in humans. A small non-randomised trial in France also found hydroxychloroquine to be a promising potential treatment.

The findings have prompted many, including US President Donald Trump, to tout hydroxychloroquine as a game-changer in the fight against COVID-19. The US Food and Drug Administration has designated hydroxychloroquine for off-label, compassionate use for treating COVID-19, and WHO added the drug to its large global SOLIDARITY trial to test a variety of potential treatments. But virologists and infectious disease experts caution that the excitement is premature.

“Whether hydroxychloroquine works in vivo is not proven for any virus, and in fact in randomised controlled trials against a number of viruses, including influenza, it doesn’t work at all,” says Douglas Richman, a virologist and infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Diego. “It’s my personal prejudice that this is also going to be the case with coronavirus.”

Hydroxychloroquine has been studied as a possible antiviral for approximately the past 40 years, says Richman. The mechanism of action is not entirely clear, but it is known to decrease the acidity in endosomes, which might prevent the endosome from releasing the virus into the cytoplasm.

Hydroxychloroquine has shown activity in vitro against many viruses, including influenza and coronaviruses, but that has largely failed to translate into success in either animals or humans. In 2005, the drug showed in vitro activity against SARS-CoV, which is closely related to the current pandemic virus, but it failed to decrease viral load in mice, and clinical interest drifted away, says Christopher Tignanelli, a surgeon at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who is involved in clinical trials of COVID-19 treatments.

“There is not a huge amount of pre-clinical data for this drug,” says Tignanelli. “It’s mostly test-tube and anecdote.”

Despite the absence of strong evidence, some people are already attempting to self-medicate with the drug, with disastrous consequences. Hydroxychloroquine can have dangerous side-effects if the dose is not carefully controlled, and cases of chloroquine poisoning have been reported in Nigeria and the USA.

Additionally, the sudden interest in hydroxychloroquine has led to reports of shortages for patients who rely on the drug to treat their autoimmune disease. Kaiser Permanente, a major health-care network in the USA, is no longer filling routine prescriptions for chloroquine.

“It’s a challenge for us and for our patients,” says Dörner. “When I write a prescription now, I tell my patients that they might need to go to several pharmacies before they get it filled.”

The Lupus Foundation of America has called on drug manufacturers to increase the production of hydroxychloroquine, to ensure that patients with SLE who need the medication will still be able to access it while it is being investigated for COVID-19. “For many people with lupus there are no alternatives to these medications,” the Foundation said in a statement.

Although the existing evidence is thin, it is promising enough to warrant further study, says David Boulware, an infectious disease physician at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. “When someone is sick in hospital, we throw the kitchen sink at them, but we don’t always know if it works,” he says. “That’s why we need clinical trials.”

Boulware is leading a trial to investigate whether hydroxychloroquine could be efficacious as a post-exposure prophylactic to prevent the development of the disease, and to prevent progression of the disease to avoid admission to hospital. The trial (NCT04308668) has already enrolled around 25% of its subjects. Initial results are expected within 3–4 weeks.

Though he is skeptical of its efficacy, Richman fully supports further research to establish whether hydroxychloroquine is a good option for treating COVID-19. “It’s imperative that good RCTs are implemented to get answers one way or another,” he says.

When Upendra Rana, a regular MCA from IME College, Sahibabad, entered the job market, he worked for two straight months without receiving any stipend. No payment for all the hard work that he did during those 60 days. That changed Upendra’s outlook on the job market and he wanted to do something for beginners in the field. That is when he was inspired to write a book for professional students and ended up writing 10 books to inspire millions of youth in the world.

Before this realization dawned upon Upendra, he was a regular middle-class guy who was content with his share of dreams & ups and downs that life subjected him to. Charged up about doing something in the IT industry, he pursued first BCA, then MCA from a college in Sahibabad. Then he joined the job market to work in SEO & SMO specializations. Today, with more than 4 years of experience behind him, he has become the first Indian writer to write books on SEO. His books are sold online on Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal besides prominent bookstores like Barnes & Noble. The e-books of his are also sold on Google Play Store and Apple iBookstore.

The only condition that Upendra put upon himself, while writing, was that no professional student should feel lost on entering the job market like he was. So far, his book titles include – Techniques of SEO-2015, Link Building – Do’s and Don’ts, Tactics of SEO, Latest Guide for Social Media Marketing, Digital Marketing Strategies – Do’s and Don’ts and How to Get Rank in Mobile?” His latest book is Step By Step Guide To SEO.

He is thankful to his parents and his extended family for providing him with the right opportunities for education. He considers his father his role model. 

With SEO and SMO being two important fields of specialization for beginners in the IT industry and the right step for a company to become visible on Google, Upendra’s books are the correct information tools for beginners to arm themselves with.

“Two months ago we established a travel startup company called Triporey ( Triporey.com ) in Hyderabad but due to the sudden outbreak of corona pandemic, all the Trip Bookings got canceled. We stopped our company operation until the situation gets under control.”
Ankur Srivastava and Malleshwar Rao,(Co-Founders of the company) share a bond of friendship for more than five years. They met in a social event and since then they partnered in organizing many events before setting up their first company. 
Triporey is a social travel platform where people can meet discover, collaborate, engage and plan their trips.  The USP of Triporey is to promote and untapped the market potential of cultural trips be it yoga or spiritual tourism. “Cultural and Spiritual tourism is certainly going to be more popular in coming days “ – Said Malleshwar Rao
“With no work currently, we thought of giving our time for social cause and we started a campaign Fight Against Corona in collaboration with FoodIndia.org (a Hyderabad based Social Service Group)” said Ankur Srivastava
The motive of this campaign is to create and promote awareness on safety precautions to prevent Corona Virus and to provide food & necessary items like a mask, soap, etc in the slums to the poor people in the time when Janata curfew and lockdown are currently in force due to Corona. In a country like India where people go for daily wage jobs and run small self-employment jobs, it is a difficult time to cope up with the situation as they can’t make any money and still maintaining the household would be a real struggle. They have certainly put forth their hand with this campaign in helping the poor as much. 

Many times they prepare food in their own home, pack and distribute it among the poor with the help of many like-minded friends like Paramanand. When you have the intention to help, you can help no matter how small it still counts- Said Malleshwar Rao

They are hoping the situation will be under control soon and people will start coming out from their home and the happy days will be back. However, they pledge to do the social service even after as it gives a sense of happiness and joy in helping poor people, seeing a smile on their faces.

The impact of the current COVID 19 pandemic on multiple industries is being noticed across the world. In the time of social distancing and home quarantine, travel and hospitality are among the worst impacted sectors! The hospitality industry is highly dependent on tourism which has borne the brunt of the current situation. This has led to multiple cancellations of room bookings, occasion celebration, and even general dining, greatly impacting their revenues and raising concerns of possible layoffs post the pandemic crisis.

Private Lifestyle clubs, which offer F&B, activities and event venues, are mostly dependent on members and guests for revenue generation. The current lockdown has impacted not only the footfalls but also the rising cost of maintaining the expensive infrastructure without actual revenues coming in. It has also adversely impacted the members’ lifestyles, who were used to a routine of working out or spending leisure time at the club.

However, once normalcy resumes, club members might want to resume their daily routine and may even do so more enthusiastically than ever. This could primarily be so in case of using the gym and working out, so as to get back in shape and make up for lost time and also to get back to socializing – one of the greatest deprivation in the lockdown. In order to address this influx, clubs would have to be prepared with the following measures:

The clubs will have to ensure

–       the club building and facilities are sanitized and there are clear visual indicators of the same to reassure the members of the safety and reiterate the management’s focus on the members’ health and well-being

–       they are ready to service their members like never before as they would be visiting the club after a long hiatus and thus need to have a great experience to keep their loyalty intact

–       ensure there is no downtime of any of the facilities as the tolerance levels for the same might be quite low. The members would be raring to use all the facilities available to the same extent as during normalcy or even more

During this downtime, it is also essential to continue to work on brand recall and maintain contact with patrons by sending out e-mailers and through a digital medium with social awareness messages and informing them about the efforts were taken up by the club. This would help brands to a) resume operations on a high note post the hiatus, and b) have adequate prospective sales in the pipeline to be able to weather the losses incurred.

Digital media is a big boon in the current situation, allowing businesses to stay in touch with their current consumers and lure in prospective customers too as most people are currently resorting to digital media for information and entertainment. Those businesses that can effectively use the same would definitely be able to reap its benefits in the near future once we approach normalcy!

As the markets and the economy finally come back to normalcy, hospitality, travel and private clubs will play an essential role in bringing people back together and share the sense of solidarity in these times of collective grief.

The Author General Manager The Acres Lifestyle Club & The Fern Residency

We live in an era, where having mobile phones, using social networking websites is no more considered a luxury, rather it has become a basic necessity, an integral part of people’s life. With the revolution in electronic and communication technology, the data and call facility is an affordable affair for major strata of society. 

Now is it very easy to send a message from one corner of the world to another? It is just a matter of a click and one can send photos, videos and other documents in a zippy manner. All these have made our lives easy, we can interact with friends or colleagues, have meetings, conferences with people in different parts of the world without the boundation of time or space.

But as we know that a coin has two faces, applying this here, when we flip the coin and look at the other side of the story, the ease of communication is also creating a menace. As said, it is very easy to spread any information from one corner to another corner, from one device to another device, it also makes job of miscreants stress free who misuse this technology to spread hatred among the masses by sending wrong information. 

It is a general human tendency, we believe what we see or hear something coming from a trustworthy source; friend, relative or an influencer, then we trust without verifying the authenticity. Time and again it has been proved that it takes a very small span of time to make a message viral, it spreads like a wild forest fire. This is becoming a big problem for the law enforcing agencies as it is very difficult to find out the exact origin of such messages. 

Legal provisions

The Constitution of India under article 19(1) guarantees to every citizen the freedom of speech and expression where if we interpret this article in a wider perspective, it also includes giving views comments on social media platforms and spreading information. But it is also true that this right comes with an exception under article 19(2), where the State can make reasonable restriction on the exercise of this right in the interest of public policy, decency, morality, contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence. It is very clear from the article that the State has the power and the authority to make laws restricting the freedom of speech and expression. 

For handling cases relating to broadcasting messages spreading hatred among the masses, section 153A of the Indian Penal code could be applied which provides punishment for promoting enmity between two different groups on the basis of religion, race, language by means of words, signs gestures. Further the application of Section 66A of the information technology is pertinent to note here which provides for punishment for upto three years with fine, for sending offensive messages, messages which the sender knows to be false. 

Section 88A of the Indian Evidence Act which talks about the presumptions as to electronic messages also explains that the Court shall not hold any presumption as to who has sent the message, but the Court may presume that the message which is forwarded is what was fed into the computer. 

Way Forward

The United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human rights defines right to freedom of speech under article 19 in these words, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” 

Reading the Fundamental right of speech and expression in the Constitution of India and the above provisions of the UDHR, it becomes clear that it is a fundamental right of a person to hold opinions, express his views and opinions, but at the same time it is also necessary to put some restrictions so that it does not encroach on the rights of another person. It has been very aptly said where my right starts your freedom ends. 

The issue of spreading wrong information is increasing at an alarming rate. People knowingly or unknowingly circulate messages which may have an effect on disturbing the law and order situation. It is high time India should come up with a law to tackle this issue. There are few issues for consideration while a law for this effect is drafted: –

1. At the outset it would be very important to understand the origin of this information, which is a task for the law enforcing agencies.
2. The issue of intention would play a prominent role here. It would be difficult to understand and monitor as to what was the intention of the person while sending/forwarding the message.
3. It has to be carefully understood, which information, the persons disseminate while having the knowledge that the information is false.
4. A same punishment cannot be set for sending such messages because one message can have an effect of mere argument, another message can be a defaming to any or a message can also have an effect of misbalancing a law and order situation. A different punishment has to be there for these offences taking in account the gravity of it.  

It is now for everyone to understand and be responsible in how, when and which messages should be transmitted. Also it is the duty of every person to understand the impact one forward message can make.

The Author is a Lawyer and Law Faculty at Ansal University

The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic is so far having little impact on the global food supply chain, but that could change for the worse – and soon – if anxiety-driven panic by major food importers takes hold, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Friday.

In a new report, Â“COVID-19: Potential impact on the world’s poorest people: A WFP analysis of the economic and food security implications of the pandemic”, the UN agency said that global markets for basic cereals are well-supplied and prices generally low.

However, it said, given the highly globalized nature of food production and supply, commodities need to move from the world’s ‘breadbaskets’ to where they are consumed – and COVID-19-related containment measures are starting to make this more challenging.

“Disruptions are so far minimal; the food supply is adequate, and markets are relatively stable,” said WFP Senior Spokesperson, Elisabeth Byers, noting that global cereal stocks are at comfortable levels and the outlook for wheat and other staple crops is positive for the rest of this year.

“But we may soon expect to see disruptions in food supply chains”, she said, explaining that if big importers lose confidence in the reliable flow of basic food commodities, panic buying could ensue, driving prices up.

‘Behavioural change’ could rock markets

Elaborating, a seasoned grain market analyst at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), quoted anonymously in the report, said the problem is not supply, but “a behavioral change over food security”.

“What if bulk buyers think they can’t get wheat or rice shipments in May or June?  That is what could lead to a global food supply crisis,” the analyst said.

For low-income countries, the consequences could be devastating, with long-term repercussions, with coping strategies coming at the expense of such essential services as health and education.

It recalled that when a food price crisis struck in 2008, the world’s poorest households – which typically spend the largest share of income on food – suffered disproportionately.

Using the economic pillar of the Proteus food security index – and taking into account dependency on primary commodities such as fuel, ores and metals for export earnings – the report said that countries in Africa and the Middle East are most vulnerable.

Africa most vulnerable

Africa accounts for the majority of the almost 212 million people in the world who are chronically food insecure and the 95 million who live amidst acute food insecurity, the report noted.

Ms. Byers added that labour shortages could disrupt the production and processing of labour-intensive crops in particularly, especially in vulnerable countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Other potential sources of disruption include blockages along transport routes – a particular concern for fresh produce – and quarantine measures that could impede farmers’ access to markets, he explained.

Going forward, the WFP report said that it is essential to monitor food prices and markets, and to transparently disseminate information – thus helping to strengthen government policies while also averting public panic, and social unrest.

It added that in places where food insecurity is caused by restricted access, rather than lack of availability, cash-based transfers – which can often be made through contactless solutions – should be considered as a standard response.

“Planning in-kind food assistance is essential”, the report continued, noting that supply chain disruptions are likely to affect higher-value items first.  Such items involve more tiers of suppliers, human interaction and dependency on few suppliers – putting specialized nutritious food more at risk than staples.