Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
Image copyrigh tREUTERSImage caption India’s prime minister called on the country to “challenge the darkness” of coronavirus
Indians have turned off their lights for a nationwide candle-lit vigil, heeding a call for unity as the country battles coronavirus.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked India’s 1.3 billion citizens to observe nine minutes without electricity at 21:00 local time (16:30 GMT) on Sunday.
He urged them to “challenge the darkness” of Covid-19 by lighting candles and lamps.
Millions responded, lighting up the night sky in a show of unity.
“Salute to the light of the lamp which brings auspiciousness, health and prosperity, which destroys negative feelings,” Mr Modi tweeted at the time of the vigil.
But critics have dismissed the event as a stunt, arguing it distracted from the health and economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr Modi imposed a nationwide lockdown on 25 March, announced with little warning, leaving millions stranded and without food.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Millions of Indians observed the nine-minute vigil called for by Mr Modi
The true figures, however, are thought to be far higher. India has one of the lowest testing rates in the world, although efforts are under way to ramp up capacity.
Image copyright REUTERSImage caption India has been under lockdown since 25 March
There are fears that a major outbreak in the country – one of the world’s most densely populated – could result in a humanitarian catastrophe.
People are banned from leaving their homes under the lockdown measures. All non-essential businesses have been closed and almost all public gatherings are banned.
Media caption As cases of coronavirus rise and the virus hits India’s congested slums, will the country cope?
But the shutdown sparked an exodus from major cities such as Delhi, forcing thousands of migrant labourers to walk hundreds of kilometres to their native villages.
Last week, Mr Modi apologised for the impact of the strict stay-at-home measures, saying there was “no other way” to stop the spread of the virus.
‘Aggressive and targeted’ tactics needed to curb spread of Covid-19 as more than 100,000 new infections recorded in just four days
Global political commitment and coordination needed to halt trajectory, agency chief says
A customs officer speaks to passengers on board an inbound flight at Beijing Capital International Airport. Photo: Xinhua
The World Health Organisation has warned that the Covid-19 pandemic is accelerating, calling for “aggressive and targeted tactics” to curb its spread after more than 100,000 new infections were recorded in just four days.
The warning, by the UN agency chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, came as the number of deaths from the disease, caused by the new coronavirus, continued to rise, and as mainland China reported a doubling in new cases.
The outbreak, which was first reported in December in China, is rapidly spreading across the globe. Tedros said it had taken 67 days from the first reported case to the first 100,000 infections, and just 11 days for the number to soar to the second 100,000.
“[It was] just four days for the third 100,000 cases. You can see how the virus is accelerating,” he said on Tuesday.
“But we’re not prisoners to statistics. We’re not helpless bystanders. We can change the trajectory of this pandemic.”
China’s National Health Commission reported 74 imported coronavirus infections on Monday – the highest since March 4, when it began including data on such cases and noted two infections that had originated abroad.
They bring the total number of imported cases on the mainland to 427, as of Monday. The total number of infections there now stands at 81,171, and the death toll has risen to 3,277, with seven new fatalities.
Tedros said political commitment and coordination at the global level were needed to stop the spread, but warned against using untested medicines, saying they could raise false hope.
“To win, we need to attack the virus with aggressive and targeted tactics – testing every suspected case, isolating and caring for every confirmed case, and tracing and quarantining every close contact,” he said.
Italy’s number of new Covid-19 cases dropped to a five-day low on Monday, easing the strain on overstretched hospitals, but the situation in Spain continued to worsen.
Italian health authorities announced 4,789 new cases on Monday, a drop from 5,560 on Sunday and 6,557 on Saturday. Spanish authorities announced 462 deaths on Monday, the country’s worst day since the start of the epidemic.
Italy has a glimpse of hope as new coronavirus cases drop to a 5-day low
24 Mar 2020
The British government said on Monday that another 54 people had died in the previous 24 hours after testing positive for the coronavirus, raising the country’s deaths from the pandemic to 335. The number of confirmed cases in Britain rose to 6,650 on Monday, from 5,683 on Sunday.
Mainland China officials have said the risk facing the nation was to contain imported infections. Among the new imported infections, 31 were recorded in Beijing, 14 in Guangdong and nine in Shanghai.
Beijing has stepped up measures to contain imported infections, diverting all arriving international flights from Monday to other cities, including Shanghai and as far west as Xian, where passengers will undergo virus screening.
Guangzhou also requires all travellers to the city, except for those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, to undergo the coronavirus test. Beijing has required the test for incoming travellers with symptoms and epidemic history.
The coastal province of Zhejiang, near Shanghai, will also put all arrivals from overseas in centralised quarantine facilities for 14 days, according to media reports.
“The central government and I are totally committed to constitutionally safeguard the political, linguistic, cultural and land rights of the Assamese people,” he tweeted.
However, with internet and mobile services shut down, it is unlikely residents would have been able to read the message.
The chief minister of Assam was stranded at the airport for several hours on Wednesday because roads were blocked by protests.
What do protesters want?
They want the bill to be repealed, as they say their ethnic and cultural identity is under threat from illegal migration.
Essentially, they do not want any migrants – regardless of religion – to be allowed into the state.
The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a list of people who can prove they came to the state by 24 March 1971, a day before neighbouring Bangladesh became an independent country.
In the run-up to its publication, the BJP had supported the NRC, but changed tack days before the final list was published, saying it was error-ridden.
The reason for that was a lot of Bengali Hindus – a strong voter base for the BJP – were left off the list, and would possibly become illegal immigrants.
The CAB is seen as being linked to the register, although it is not the same thing.
It will help protect non-Muslims who are excluded from the register and face the threat of deportation or internment.
Has the bill been challenged?
The Indian Union Muslim League, a political party, has petitioned the country’s top court to declare the bill illegal.
In their petition to the Supreme Court, the Indian Union Muslim League argued that the bill violated articles of equality, fundamental rights and the right to life.
Police in Hong Kong have been fighting running battles with activists in a third consecutive day of protests, after a call for a general strike caused widespread disruption on Monday.
Protesters blocked roads and paralysed train services at peak times on a day of action across the city.
More than 200 flights were cancelled as the protests entered their ninth week.
Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, has pledged to restore law and order, rejecting calls for her resignation.
Initially the demonstrations, which began on 9 June, focused on a controversial extradition law, which would have allowed the transfer of suspects to mainland China. However, the protests have now become a wider challenge to Beijing’s authority.
Ms Lam warned that Hong Kong was “on the verge of a very dangerous situation”.
Media caption Protests take place in Hong Kong for the ninth weekend – for and against the authorities
In her first media address in two weeks, Ms Lam said the protesters’ actions had challenged the principle of “one country, two systems” – the extra freedoms granted to Hong Kong when it was returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
She also accused activists of using the extradition bill as a cover for their real goals.
“We continue to allow these violent protesters to make use of the [extradition] bill to conceal their ulterior motives,” she said. “Those ulterior motives are going to destroy Hong Kong.”
Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
The Chinese foreign ministry said no one should underestimate China’s resolve to safeguard the stability of Hong Kong, Reuters news agency reports.
What happened on Monday?
Police fired tear gas at several locations as protesters rallied into the night, setting fires and besieging police stations. In the North Point district, which has a reputation for pro-Beijing sympathies, men wielding long poles clashed with demonstrators before falling back.
More than 80 people were arrested, in addition to the 420 detained since 9 June. In that time, police said they had used more than 1,000 tear gas canisters and 160 rubber bullets.
Protest leaders had called for a general strike. While many people made it to work, in some areas protesters blocked trains from leaving stations and scuffled with commuters. Several lines of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) were suspended for a time, and the Cross-Harbour Tunnel was also blocked.
One video circulating on Twitter reportedly showed a car in the district of Yuen Long forcefully hitting a barricade set up by protesters, injuring one person.
It is not clear how many joined the strike, but tens of thousands of protesters were out on the streets. Several shops and businesses were closed, including international fashion retailers like Topshop and Zara.
Hong Kong airport, one of the busiest in the world, said travellers should check its website and seek updates directly from the airlines.
Most of the cancelled flights were with local carriers Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Airlines.
The protests were initially sparked by a controversial bill that would allow China to extradite suspects from Hong Kong to the mainland.
Critics said it would undermine the territory’s judicial independence and could be used to target those who spoke out against the Chinese government.
Although the bill has now been suspended, demonstrators want it fully withdrawn.
Their demands have broadened to include an independent inquiry into alleged police brutality, Ms Lam’s resignation, and the dropping of riot charges linked to the protests.
Last week, more than 40 activists appeared in court charged with rioting. If convicted, they could be jailed for up to 10 years.
The Chinese army has so far stayed out of the dispute, but China’s top policy office in Hong Kong has previously condemned the protests, calling them “horrendous incidents” that have caused “serious damage to the rule of law”.
Image copyrigh tREUTERS
Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image copyright REUTERS
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 