Archive for ‘“sleeping”’

15/05/2020

Coronavirus lockdown: India announces free food for fleeing migrants

Migrant workers with their families rest at a roadside on their journey back to their hometowns in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar statesImage copyright EPA
Image caption Millions of people have fled the cities in India

India will provide free food to migrants for two months as part of a $266bn (£216bn) economic plan to combat the effect of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said grain supplies worth $463m would benefit 80 million migrants.

Tens of thousands of migrants have been fleeing cities on foot, trying to return to their villages.

Many of these informal workers who form the backbone of city economies feared they would starve in the lockdown.

The plight of these workers, many of whom have been walking for days without adequate food and water, has caused widespread anger in the country.

Train and bus services were shut during the lockdown and even though some have been restarted for migrants, many say they cannot afford the fare and are unsure if they will be accommodated on them due to social distancing norms.

Several have died in making the journey, including 16 migrants who were run over by a train while they were sleeping on the railway tracks.

Media caption Coronavirus: Heartbreaking scenes as India lockdown sparks mass migration

Ms Sitharaman also announced that workers would be able to use ration cards – usually only valid at village level – anywhere in the country regardless of where it was issued.

The ration cards usually entitle holders to subsidised food.

She added that the move towards portable cards would benefit nearly 670 million people and will be completed by March next year.

The government will also provide affordable housing for migrant labour by converting existing vacant government funded housing complexes, among other things.

The announcements on Thursday – the second tranche of a series of economic stimulus measures – were aimed at migrant workers, street hawkers, small traders and small farmers.

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The full details of the economic package, which is equivalent to 10% of India’s gross domestic product, will be known in some days as the government is announcing a different tranche every day.

Ms Sitharaman’s announcements also included details of “special credit” to be provided to five million street hawkers who have been forced to cease working over the last month and a half.

To help farmers, the government also announced an emergency $4bn “working capital funding” which would benefit some 30 million small farmers to meet crop requirements in May and June

In March, India said it would provide around 1.7 trillion rupees in direct cash transfers and food security measures, mainly for the poor.

However, Mr Modi’s administration had been accused in some quarters of not having done enough.

Source: The BBC

17/04/2020

China’s Chang’e-4 probe resumes work for 17th lunar day

BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) — The lander and rover of the Chang’e-4 probe have resumed work for the 17th lunar day on the far side of the moon after “sleeping” during the extremely cold night.

The lander woke up at 1:24 p.m. Friday (Beijing time), and the rover awoke at 8:57 p.m. Thursday. Both are in normal working order, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration.

The Chang’e-4 probe, launched on Dec. 8, 2018, made the first-ever soft landing on the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3, 2019.

A lunar day equals 14 days on Earth, and a lunar night is the same length. The Chang’e-4 probe, switching to dormant mode during the lunar night due to the lack of solar power, has survived about 470 Earth days on the moon.

The rover Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, has worked much longer than its three-month design life, becoming the longest-working lunar rover on the moon.

Carrying scientific instruments such as panoramic camera, lunar penetrating radar, infrared imaging spectrometer and neutral atom detector, the rover will continue to move northwest to conduct scientific detection.

The scientific tasks of the Chang’e-4 mission include conducting low-frequency radio astronomical observation, surveying the terrain and landforms, detecting the mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure and measuring neutron radiation and neutral atoms.

The Chang’e-4 mission embodies China’s hope to combine wisdom in space exploration with four payloads developed by the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Saudi Arabia.

Source: Xinhua

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