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.
LONDON (Reuters) – China has betrayed the people of Hong Kong so the West should stop kowtowing to Beijing for an illusory great pot of gold, said Chris Patten, the last governor of the former British colony.
Beijing is set to impose new national security legislation on Hong Kong after a sustained campaign of pro-democracy protests last year in the city, which enjoys many freedoms not allowed on mainland China.
“The Hong Kong people have been betrayed by China,” Patten was quoted as saying by The Times newspaper. Britain has a “moral, economic and legal” duty to stand up for Hong Kong, he said.
Patten watched as the British flag was lowered over Hong Kong when the colony was handed back to China in 1997 after more than 150 years of British rule.
Hong Kong’s autonomy was guaranteed under the “one country, two systems” agreement principle enshrined in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration signed by then Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
But China’s plans to impose national security laws on Hong Kong risk destroying the Declaration, Patten said. The United States has branded the laws a “death knell” for the city’s autonomy.
“What we are seeing is a new Chinese dictatorship,” Patten said. “The British government should make it clear that what we are seeing is a complete destruction of the Joint Declaration.”
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said her government will “fully cooperate” with the Chinese parliament to safeguard national security, which she said would not affect rights, freedoms or judicial independence.
Patten said the West should stop chasing the illusory promise of Chinese gold.
“We should stop being fooled that somehow at the end of the all the kowtowing there’s this great pot of gold waiting for us. It’s always been an illusion,” Patten said.
“We keep on kidding ourselves that unless we do everything that China wants we will somehow miss out on great trading opportunities. It’s drivel.”
The British government did not immediately comment on Saturday.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman said on Friday the government was monitoring the situation and as a party to the Joint Declaration the UK was committed to the upholding Hong Kong’s autonomy and respecting the one country, two systems model.
Image copyright AFP / GETTYImage caption The P4 laboratory (centre) in Wuhan is among a handful around the world cleared to handle viruses that pose a high risk of person-to-person transmission
Chinese state media has accused US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of lying, after he said there was “enormous evidence” the coronavirus emanated from a laboratory in Wuhan.
Mr Pompeo made the claim on Sunday, without going into specifics.
In an editorial on Tuesday, the hawkish Global Times newspaper said Mr Pompeo was “degenerate”.
The World Health Organization says the US claims are “speculative”, and that it has seen no “specific evidence”.
What did Chinese media say?
Editorials in Chinese state media often given an insight into the direction of government thinking, but there has been no official response to Mr Pompeo’s comments as yet.
“Pompeo aims to kill two birds with one stone by spewing falsehoods,” it said.
“First, he hopes to help Trump win re-election this November…second, Pompeo hates socialist China and, in particular, cannot accept China’s rise.”
Media caption “The Chinese Communist Party has refused to co-operate with world health experts” – Mike Pompeo
The editorial admitted there were “initial problems” in China’s response to the outbreak, but claimed “the overall performance is bright enough to outweigh the flaws”.
It also said it was “conceivable that the virus first contacted humans in other places [than Wuhan]”.
The Global Times is not the only Chinese outlet to take aim at Mr Pompeo and the US.
The People’s Daily said Mr Pompeo had “no evidence”, while a piece on the CCTV site accused US politicians of “nefarious plotting”.
What did Mike Pompeo say?
In an interview with ABC on Sunday, Mr Pompeo said there was “enormous evidence” that the virus had emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running sub-standard laboratories,” he said.
Mr Pompeo – a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – said he did not think the virus was man-made or genetically modified.
The Wuhan laboratory is known to study coronaviruses in bats. In April, President Trump was asked whether “lax safety protocols” allowed such a virus to escape via an intern and her boyfriend.
Mr Trump did not confirm the theory, but said: “More and more we’re hearing the story.”
Media caption Donald Trump was recently asked if the virus emanated in a laboratory, rather than a market
Last week, he was asked if he had seen evidence that gave him a “high degree of confidence” that the virus emerged in the Wuhan laboratory.
“Yes I have,” he replied – but said he could not go into specifics.
On Monday, World Health Organization emergencies director Michael Ryan said it had received “no data or specific evidence” from the US about the virus origins.
“So from our perspective, this remains speculative,” he said.
Last week, the US intelligence community said it “concurred” that the virus “was not man-made or genetically modified”.
But it said it would “continue to examine” whether the outbreak began via “contract with infected animals, or if it was the result of an an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan”.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday that the most likely source of the virus was a wildlife market. However he said he would not rule out the theory that it originated in a lab.
“What’s really important is that we have a proper review, an independent review which looks into the sources of these things in a transparent way so we can learn the lessons,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, Western “intelligence sources” have told several news outlets there is “no evidence” to suggest the virus leaked from a laboratory.
Six animals inoculated with vaccine candidate then exposed to virus did not catch Covid-19 after 28 days
Up to 60 million doses could be produced by Serum Institute of India this year
Microbiologist Elisa Granato gets an injection on Thursday as part of the first human trials in Britain for a potential coronavirus vaccine. Photo: University of Oxford via AP
A leading candidate for a Covid-19 vaccine has shown promising results in animal trials, and is expected to see mass production in India within months.
The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest maker of vaccines by volume, said on Tuesday that it plans this year to produce up to 60 million doses of a potential vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, which is under clinical trial in Britain.
While the vaccine candidate, called “ChAdOx1 nCoV-19”, is yet to be proven to work against Covid-19, Serum decided to start manufacturing it as it had shown success in animal trials and had progressed to tests on humans, Serum Chief Executive Adar Poonawalla said.
Six rhesus macaque monkeys were inoculated with the vaccine candidate at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana last month, according to The New York Times.
Covid-19 vaccine trial starts in Oxford, but remdesivir treatment reportedly flops in China tests
The subjects were exposed afterwards to large quantities of the novel coronavirus, but all six remained healthy after more than 28 days, the newspaper reported, citing researcher Vincent Munster, who conducted the test.
More than 3 million people have been reported to be infected globally and over 210,000 have died from Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.
“They are a bunch of very qualified, great scientists [at Oxford] … That’s why we said we will go with this and that’s why we are confident,” Poonawalla told Reuters in a phone interview.
“Being a private limited company, not accountable to public investors or bankers, I can take a little risk and sideline some of the other commercial products and projects that I had planned in my existing facility,” Poonawalla said.
Bill Gates hopes his virus vaccine ‘manufacturing within a year’
27 Apr 2020
As many as 100 potential Covid-19 candidate vaccines are now under development by biotech and research teams around the world, and at least five of these are in preliminary testing in people in what are known as phase one clinical trials.
Poonawalla said he hoped trials of the Oxford vaccine, due to finish in about September, would be successful. Oxford scientists said last week the main focus of initial tests was to ascertain not only whether the vaccine worked but that it induced good immune responses and no unacceptable side effects.
Serum, owned by the Indian billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, plans to make the vaccine at its two manufacturing plants in the western city of Pune, aiming to produce up to 400 million doses next year if all goes well, Poonawalla said.
“A majority of the vaccine, at least initially, would have to go to our countrymen before it goes abroad,” he said, adding that Serum would leave it to the Indian government to decide which countries would get how much of the vaccine and when.
Rhesus macaque monkeys are often used in animal testing because of their similarity to humans. Photo: AFP
Serum envisages a price of 1,000 rupees (US$14.70) per vaccine, but governments would give it to people without charge, he said.
He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office was “very closely” involved in the vaccine production and the company is hoping the government will help foot the cost of making it.
Over roughly the next five months, Serum will spend some 300 million to 400 million rupees (US$4.4 million to US$5.9 million) on making around 3-5 million doses per month, he said. “[The government] are very happy to share some risk and fund something with us, but we haven’t really pencilled anything down yet,” Poonawalla said.
Coronavirus: clinical trial begins on third vaccine candidate in China
22 Apr 2020
Serum has also partnered with the US biotech firm Codagenix and Austria’s Themis on two other Covid-19 vaccine candidates and plans to announce a fourth alliance in a couple of weeks, he said.
Serum’s board last week also agreed to invest roughly 6 billion rupees (US$8.8 billion) on making a new manufacturing unit to solely produce coronavirus vaccines, Poonawalla said.
Vietnamese vessels last year spent months shadowing the Chinese Haiyang Dizhi 8 survey vessel in resource-rich waters that are a potential global flashpoint as the
China and Vietnam ‘likely to clash again’ as they build maritime militias
12 Apr 2020
On Tuesday, the ship, which is used for offshore seismic surveys, appeared again 158km off Vietnam’s coast, within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), flanked by at least one Chinese coastguard vessel, according to data from Marine Traffic, a website that tracks shipping.
At least three Vietnamese vessels were moving with the Chinese ship, according to data issued by the Marine Traffic site.
South China Sea News@SCS_news
·
Haiyang Dizhi 8 is heading toward #SouthChinaSea with several escort ships.
South China Sea News@SCS_news
About 50 nm ahead of Haiyang Dizhi 8 is a group of at least 3 #China Coast Guard ships, including the largest 5901. #SouthChinaSea
The presence of the Haiyang Dizhi 8 in Vietnam’s EEZ comes towards the scheduled end of a 15-day nationwide lockdown in Vietnam aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus.
“We call on the PRC to remain focused on supporting international efforts to combat the global pandemic, and to stop exploiting the distraction or vulnerability of other states to expand its unlawful claims in the South China Sea,” the US State Department said in a statement, referring to China.
Vietnam pulls DreamWorks’ ‘Abominable’ over South China Sea map
, which also has disputed claims in the South China Sea, has raised its concerns too.
On Saturday, the Global Times, published by the official People’s Daily newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party, said Vietnam had used the fishing boat incident to distract from its “ineptitude” in handling the coronavirus.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Helped by a mass quarantine and aggressive contact-tracing, Vietnam has recorded 265 cases of the novel coronavirus and no deaths. Nearly 122,000 coronavirus tests have been carried out in Vietnam.
China and Vietnam have for years been at loggerheads over the potentially energy-rich waters, called the East Sea by Vietnam.
China’s U-shaped “nine-dash line” on its maps marks a vast expanse of the waters that it claims, including large parts of Vietnam’s continental shelf where it has awarded oil concessions.
and Brunei claim some of the waters that China claims to the south.
During the stand-off last year, at least one Chinese coastguard vessel spent weeks in waters close to an oil rig in a Vietnamese oil block, operated by Russia’s Rosneft, while the Haihyang Dizhi 8 conducted suspected oil exploration surveys in large expanses of Vietnam’s EEZ.
“The deployment of the vessel is Beijing’s move to once again baselessly assert its sovereignty in the South China Sea,” said Ha Hoang Hop, at the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
“China is using the coronavirus distraction to increase its assertiveness in the South China Sea, at a time when the US and Europe are struggling to cope with the new coronavirus.”
BEIJING (Reuters) – China on Sunday reported 46 new cases of coronavirus, the fourth straight day with an increase, with all but one of those imported from overseas, and further stepped up measures to intercept cases from abroad as the outbreak worsens globally.
While China says it has drastically reduced the number of domestically transmitted cases – the one reported on Sunday was the first in four days – it is seeing a steady rise in imported cases, mostly from Chinese people returning from overseas.
In a sign of how seriously China is taking the threat of imported cases, all international flights due to arrive in Beijing starting Monday will first land at another airport, where passengers will undergo virus screening, government agencies said on Sunday, in an expansion of existing measures.
International flights that were scheduled to arrive in the capital will land instead at one of 12 airports. Passengers who clear screening will then be permitted to reboard the plane, which will then fly to Beijing, the regulator said.
Separately, Shanghai and Guangzhou both announced that all arriving international passengers will undergo an RNA test to screen for coronavirus, expanding a program that previously only applied to those coming from heavily-hit countries.
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Among the new cases from abroad reported on Sunday, a record 14 were in the financial hub of Shanghai and 13 were in Beijing, a decline from 21 the previous day.
The new locally transmitted case was in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou and was also the first known case where the infection of a local person was linked to the arrival of someone from overseas, according to Guangdong province.
Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Global Times newspaper, called for all cities in China to implement 14-day quarantines for people arriving from abroad.
He also called for quarantine policies to apply to people from Hong Kong and Macau as well, he said on his Weibo account on Sunday.
“I am worried that there are similar cases to the Guangzhou one existing in other parts of the country. There were reports previously that people coming back from abroad returned to their homes in Shanghai without any obstacles,” Hu said.
“It matters to the overall situation of China’s next prevention and control efforts if we can plug the leaks.”
The Global Times is a tabloid published by the Ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily.
The latest figures from China’s National Health Commission bring total reported coronavirus cases in the country to 81,054, with 3,261 deaths, including six on Saturday. On Saturday, China reported 41 new coronavirus cases for the previous day, all of them imported.
Of all 97 imported cases as of end-Saturday, 92 of them are Chinese nationals and 51 are Chinese students returning from studying abroad, said Gao Xiaojun, spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Health Commission during a press conference on Sunday.
The Beijing health commission announced separately on its website it had two more imported cases on Sunday, bringing the city’s total number of imported cases to 99 as of Sunday noon.
BACK TO A KIND OF NORMAL
China is trying to revive an economy that is widely expected to contract deeply in the current quarter, with life slowly returning to normal in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, albeit with everyone wearing masks in public.
Still, numerous shops and restaurants remain shut – many have gone out of business – and factories and other workplaces are still not operating at full capacity.
On Sunday, a central bank official called for stepped-up global policy coordination to manage the economic impact of the pandemic. He said China’s recent policy measures were gaining traction, and it has capacity for further action.
Chen Yulu, a deputy governor at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), also said he expects significant improvement in the Chinese economy in the second quarter.
And while the virus will continue putting upward pressure on near-term consumer prices, there is no basis for long-term inflation or deflation, he told a news briefing.
Globally, roughly 275,000 people have been infected with the virus, and more than 11,000 have died, according to a Reuters tally, with the number of deaths in Italy recently surpassing those in China.
“Now I think the epidemic has been controlled. But this definitely doesn’t mean that it’s over,” said a 25-year-old woman surnamed He who works in the internet sector and was visiting the vast Summer Palace complex in Beijing on Saturday.
“I’m willing to come out today but of course I am still afraid,” she told Reuters.
The central province of Hubei, where the outbreak first emerged late last year in its capital Wuhan, reported its fourth straight day of no new cases.
China has used draconian measures to contain the spread of the virus, including locking down Hubei province.
British supermarket is investigating after newspaper report that six-year-old girl found message in card saying it was packed by Shanghai prisoners
Britain’s biggest retailer Tesco said it was “shocked by these allegations”. Photo: AFP
British supermarket giant Tesco suspended a Chinese supplier of Christmas cards on Sunday after a press report said a customer found a message written inside a card saying it had been packed by foreign prisoners who were victims of forced labour.
“We abhor the use of prison labour and would never allow it in our supply chain,” a Tesco spokesman said on Sunday.
“We were shocked by these allegations and immediately suspended the factory where these cards are produced and launched an investigation.”
donates £300,000 (US$390,000) a year from the sale of the cards to the charities British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and Diabetes UK.
The Sunday Times said the message inside the card read: “We are foreign prisoners in Shanghai Qingpu Prison China. Forced to work against our will. Please help us and notify human rights organisation.
“Use the link to contact Mr Peter Humphrey.”
Peter Humphrey is a British former journalist and corporate fraud investigator.
Humphrey and his American wife Yu Yingzeng were both sentenced in China in 2014
for illegally obtaining private records of Chinese citizens and selling the information to clients including drug maker GlaxoSmithKline. The couple were deported from China in June 2015 after their jail terms were reduced.
The message inside the card was found by a six-year-old girl, Florence Widdicombe, in London, The Sunday Times said. Her father contacted Humphrey via the LinkedIn social network.
Writing in The Sunday Times, Humphrey said he did not know the identities or the nationalities of the prisoners who put the note into the card, but he “had no doubt they are Qingpu prisoners who knew me before my release in June 2015 from the suburban prison where I spent 23 months”.
Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, said it had a comprehensive auditing process in place.
“This supplier was independently audited as recently as last month and no evidence was found to suggest they had broken our rule banning the use of prison labour,” the spokesman said.
“If a supplier breaches these rules, we will immediately and permanently delist them.”
Sky News said the cards were produced at the Zheijiang Yunguang Printing factory, which is about 100km (60 miles) from Shanghai Qingpu prison.
The company, which prints cards and books for food and pharmaceutical companies, says on its website it supplies Tesco.
Two phone calls and one emailed request for comment to the company went unanswered after usual business hours on Sunday.
Humphrey and his wife said in their trial they had not thought they were doing anything illegal in their activities in China.
Best pilots from carrier-borne squadrons sent to naval academy for warship training to meet ‘urgent need’ for commanders
They had to pass more than 10 assessments – from political thought to psychological testing – before they could join the programme
China’s second aircraft carrier, the Type 001A, is expected to be operational by the end of this year. Photo: Sina
The Chinese navy is training fighter pilots experienced in carrier-borne operations to command and manage its warships as it seeks to expand its global naval power.
Its best pilots from carrier-borne squadrons – including some qualified to fly fighter jets during both daytime and at night – were sent to a naval academy for warship combat and command training late last month, PLA Daily reported on Monday.
It did not say how many pilots had been selected, but all of them were required to pass more than 10 assessments – ranging from political thought to psychological testing – before they could join the training programme, the official People’s Liberation Army newspaper said.
Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie said the programme would focus on command and control skills for air and sea operations, and some of the pilots would ultimately be selected to command China’s new aircraft carrier strike groups.
As part of its ambition to build a powerful blue-water navy that can operate globally, China plans to have four aircraft carriers in service by 2035. Its second aircraft carrier – the first built in China, known as the Type 001A – is undergoing sea trials and is expected to be operational by the end of this year.
Work on the more modern Type 002 carrier started two years ago and a naval source told the South China Morning Post that construction of a second Type 002 vessel could begin as early as 2021.
But they will need suitable carrier pilots to take command.
“It’s quite an urgent need for the Chinese navy to have carrier group commanders – like its Western counterparts do – who are capable of commanding different warships and aircraft in modern joint-operation combat situations,” Li said.
China to deploy Sharp Sword stealth drone for new Type 001A aircraft carrier
“Aircraft carrier strike groups are supposed to sail on the high seas and into unfamiliar territory, so aside from having a background as naval aviators, all commanding officers should have a broad set of skills and knowledge – from foreign languages and international maritime law to air and sea operations – to help them make good decisions,” he said.
Other navies, such as the United States Navy, require more experience for the role – commanding officers of US aircraft carriers must be former naval aviators as well as former captains of different types of warships.
For example, Captain Pat “Fin” Hannifin, commanding officer of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, has over 2,800 flight hours in 33 different aircraft under his belt. He was also executive officer on another aircraft carrier and commander of an amphibious transport dock.
Rear Admiral Li Xiaoyan, the first captain of China’s only active aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was a pilot with no experience on carrier-borne aircraft, though he did have experience on a destroyer and frigates. He was replaced by Zhang Zheng just days after the Liaoning formally joined the PLA Navy in 2012, and later by Liu Zhe – neither of whom had naval aviator backgrounds.
Li Xiaoyan was one of the first group of 10 pilots selected for a training programme designed specifically for China’s future aircraft carriers back in 1987. But the whole aircraft carrier plan was suspended in 1998 by premier Zhu Rongji for political and economic reasons, according to China’s Carrier, a book published by China Development Press.
China’s navy begins national search for trainee top-gun pilots
Naval expert Li Jie said the Chinese navy now had to catch up in terms of training pilots, and especially commanding officers, for its aircraft carriers.
“China resumed the aircraft carrier plan and in 2004 started refitting the hull of the Varyag. But after that first group of pilots was trained in 1987, there was no formal training in air and sea operations because there was no aircraft carrier training platform until 2012,” Li said, referring to the unfinished Admiral Kuznetsov-class vessel China bought from Ukraine in 1998, which became the Liaoning.
He said the latest training programme for commanding officers was a continuation of the one that began more than 30 years ago.
Image copyright EENADU NEWSPAPER/A SRINIVASImage caption The photo that sparked an outcry
A five-year-old in the southern city of Hyderabad was enrolled in school after a photo of her peeking into a classroom sparked an outcry. BBC Telugu’s Deepthi Bathini reports on why the photo doesn’t tell the full story.
Divya is something of a local celebrity in the slum where she lives. The shy five-year-old was the subject of a recent photo which went viral – it showed her clutching a bowl and peeking into a classroom at the local government school.
The touching image was published in a Telugu newspaper on 7 November with a caption that translates from the Telugu as “hungry gaze”.
It quickly grabbed people’s attention: a children’s rights activist shared it on Facebook, lamenting that yet another child was being denied the right to food and education.
It had such an impact, the school enrolled Divya the following day.
But her father, M Lakshman, says the photo and the outcry it provoked was in fact unfair to him and his wife, Yashoda, who works as a sweeper.
Image caption Five-year-old Divya enrolled in school after a photo of her in a newspaper went viral
“I felt sad when I saw the photo,” he told the BBC. “Divya has parents and we are working so hard to give her a good future – but she was portrayed as a hungry orphan.”
Mr Lakshman says he was waiting for Divya to turn six so he could enrol her in a government hostel where his other two daughters are studying. The couple also have a son, who has finished school and is now applying to college while helping Mr Lakshman, who works as a rag picker.
Breaking the cycle
Divya and her parents live in a one-room hut in a shanty town in the heart of Hyderabad. The slum is about 100 metres from the government school, where Divya was photographed. Most of the 300 families living here are daily wage labourers and their children attend the school nearby.
The home is sparse and plastic and glass are piled outside, ready to be sold for recycling. He says between him and his wife, they earn about 10,000 rupees ($139; £108) a month, which pays for their food and clothes. Education, however, is free for the children, since they are all enrolled in government-run schools.
Mr Lakshman knows what it is to struggle: he himself grew up without parents and always battled to earn a decent living. “I never wanted my children to have the life I had. So I made sure they all go to school.”
The photo, he adds, was especially hurtful because he has also been taking care of his brother’s five children.
Image caption Divya’s father said the outcry over the photo was “unfair” to his family
“My brother and sister-in-law passed away sometime ago. I didn’t want their five children to grow up as orphans. So, I enrolled all of them in a hostel and I take care of them.”
When asked why Divya had gone to the government school with a bowl in hand, Mr Lakshman explains that a lot of the younger children from the slum go there around lunch time to take advantage of the free midday meal – a government programme which provides cooked meals to children in more than a million schools – which they know about because their older brothers and sisters are already enrolled.
“Divya doesn’t go every day but she happened to go on that day and someone photographed her,” he explained.
This was confirmed by teachers at the school who told the BBC that some children brought lunch from home, so leftovers over from the free meal scheme would be given to the younger children who had not yet joined.
“Children are children. And there is no day-care centre, so a lot of these children hang around the school anyway,” says one teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Image caption Divya says she’s excited to go to school
Mr Lakshman and his neighbours acknowledged the lack of an anganwadi, or government-sponsored day-care centre, in the neighbourhood was a major problem as parents had no place to leave their children so they could go to work.
The local school inspector, SU Shivram Prasad, says he hopes the attention generated by the Divya’s photo will hasten the process of setting up one up.
“It will help the parents and the children can eat a nutritious meal,” he adds.
Teachers at the school also hope that the media spotlight will improve facilities. They say there is an acute shortage of staff and teaching materials, and the school did not even have a compound wall, which meant they have to constantly watch the children during their breaks.
Divya, however, is excited to be going to school. She insists on taking her school bag with her everywhere, even to the playground. Other than saying her name, she does not answer any questions.
“She is a very calm child,” says Mr Lakshman, as his daughter holds his hand and kisses it.
And he admits that despite everything, the photo did do some good.
“Now other children who are Divya’s age are also enrolling in school. So that makes me happy.”
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption The US says Huawei equipment has back doors that would enable Chinese surveillance
Chinese tech giant Huawei, which has been banned from selling 5G equipment to US telecom companies, is making an aggressive push to market itself in India.
“It’s been squeezed out of countries by a few governments already, and so a possible contract with India for 5G would be especially important,” Arun Sukumar, a tech analyst at the Observer Research Foundation, told the BBC.
“It’s worth noting that even though Huawei is comfortable at the moment, it will need to continue to invest across the world and into new markets in order to stay afloat – and what’s a bigger market than India?”
Huawei has also been banned in Australia, and several other countries are considering following suit.
The US says Huawei equipment contains back doors that would enable Chinese surveillance.
But the company has repeatedly denied claims that the use of its products poses security risks, and says it is independent from the Chinese government.
The size of India’s wireless market – dwarfed only by China – make it a vital market for any company, but the troubles Huawei is facing at present make could make India critical to its future.
The US has been pressurising India and its other allies to boycott the company and has not ruled out punitive measures against those who fail to do so.
US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said during a visit to Delhi that the US hoped that its “geopolitical partner India does not inadvertently subject itself to untoward security risk”.
Jay Chen, CEO of Huawei India, told the BBC’s Devina Gupta that the company was even willing to sign an undertaking with the Indian government, promising that its equipment would contain no back doors as alleged by the US.
“We have read in the media that the US government is trying to lobby with the Indian government but I still believe that we should focus on what we can do and try our best,” he said.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption The company provides technology infrastructure to launch 5G networks
India has not commented on US charges against Huawei and has invited it to participate in its upcoming 5G spectrum trials, although a date for this has not been announced yet.
Mr Sukumar told the BBC that to exclude Huawei from the 5G process could actually prove detrimental to India.
“No more than five companies have the infrastructure to launch 5G, and Huawei’s infrastructure is more affordable than other Western ones like Nokia and Erikson. India’s telecom industry is already struggling, so to ally with Huawei – which could provide the service at the lowest rate – is very attractive,” he said.
India does not have a homegrown alternative to Huawei’s technology – and the company is well aware of this.
Police investigation reveals animal had escaped from a nearby restaurant
The escaped crocodile was captured by police officers and taken to the local station. Photo: Handout
A security guard at a beauty spot in eastern China was shocked to discover a 2-metre (6ft 6in) crocodile while on his rounds in the early hours of Monday morning.
The animal was lying motionless on a road at Xinlonghu Park in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, with its jaws tied by a strip of cloth, when it was spotted by the security guard, who immediately called the police, according to the Modern Express newspaper.
It took a number of officers to capture the crocodile and take it to the local police station, where an investigation revealed the animal had escaped from a nearby restaurant. The animal was returned and the restaurant owner was “criticised” by police, who urged that a close eye be kept on the animal, the report said.
“They bought it from a farm somewhere as a food material to attract customers. It has been killed for crocodile meat dishes,” an officer told the South China Morning Post on Wednesday.
Crocodiles were once vegetarians – but it was just a phase
Police said it was fortunate that the crocodile had been caught before it had entered the park’s lake or caused any danger to people.
It is unclear what species the crocodile belonged to but China permits the commercial breeding and use of the critically endangered Siamese crocodile, as well as saltwater and Nile crocodiles, which are listed as least concern species.
A staff member of the restaurant, called No. 1 Lakeside, told the Post stewed crocodile meat was on the menu for 168 yuan (US$23.60) a serving, while stewed crocodile claw was also available at 258 yuan.
Crocodile appears in ancient Chinese medicine books as a treatment for respiratory illnesses and the meat has long been regarded as a delicacy, especially in southern China, such as Guangdong province. Crocodile skin also remains a popular material for luxury handbags and other leather goods.
In June, another crocodile, measuring about 1.5 metres, was found in a road puddle during a heavy rain in Wuhan, in the central province of Hubei, where many restaurants have crocodile meat on their menus, the Chutian Metropolis Daily reported.
In that incident it took three officers to capture the animal which was sent to a wildlife centre where a physical check-up showed it had been bred in captivity, most likely for food.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 