Cyclone Amphan and the destruction caused in its wake dominates headlines on front pages Thursday morning as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called it ten times worse than the 2009 Cyclone Aila.
The other big announcement came from the civil aviation ministry as domestic flights are all set to resume from 25 May, but Tribune and Mint are not entirely sure this is the best move considering many prominent cities like Mumbai and Delhi continue to be Covid-19 red zones.
Amphan makes the lead story in The Times of India — ‘12 killed as savage cyclone batters Bengal at 165kmph’. TOI reports, “Barrelling in from the Bay of Bengal with wind speeds of up to 185kmph, severe cyclonic storm Amphan on Wednesday cut a swathe through northern Odisha before bearing down on West Bengal, where it claimed 10 to 12 lives, flattened houses and cast aside trees and electricity poles like matchsticks in six-and-a-half hours of monstrous fury.”
In other news, ‘Domestic flights to resume from Monday, bookings begin today’. The paper reports, “Domestic flights will finally start taking to the skies from Monday (May 25) in a gradual manner, exactly two months after being stopped as part of the national lockdown imposed to check the spread of coronavirus. Bookings will start from Thursday. However, international flights, which were stopped on March 22, will stay grounded for now.”
And the US has entered India-China tensions as ‘US slams China’s ‘disturbing behaviour’ at India border’. The paper reports, “In a sharp criticism of China over border tensions with India, the US on Wednesday described Beijing’s actions as ‘disturbing behaviour’ and said the skirmishes were a reminder of the threat China posed as it sought to use its power, whether in the South China Sea or on the borders with India.”
The Indian Express’ lead story is on the resumption of some domestic flights from 25 May. Amphan news finds place below the lead along with a photograph from Digha coast and the headline notes how the cyclone ‘batters coastal Bengal’.
As the migrant workers’ crisis continues, another headline notes, ‘Facing migrant flood, UP, Bihar say need help to connect to districts’. Express reports, “The Centre may have done away with the need for destination states’ consent to ramp up services of Shramik Special trains, but states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which are major destination states for migrants, are grappling with logistics issues in handling the rush.”
In some good (or maybe bad) news for students, ‘Class 10, 12 exams get govt nod, with conditions’. The paper reports, “The Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday allowed the conduct of board exams for Classes 10 and 12. The decision was taken after several states and central boards such as CBSE petitioned the government.”
Do check out the Amul ad poking fun at Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s five-tranche fiscal package.
Hindustan Times also highlights the “trail of devastation” that cyclone Amphan left in its wake in West Bengal and Odisha.
And back to our resident horror: ‘Global coronavirus cases cross 5 million in less than 5 months’. HT reports, “The number of Covid-19 cases crossed 5 million on Wednesday as the pandemic continued to devastate the globe where close to 325,000 people have now died due to it and millions more find themselves unemployed and at the risk of poverty.”
Additionally, social distance needs to be widened as a study states that ‘Droplets can travel 6 metres’. According to the daily, “Droplets of saliva can travel as far as six metres even in low wind speeds of 4kmph, a new study has found, indicating that current social distancing guidelines of two metres may be insufficient to stop a Covid-19 patient from transmitting the disease.”
The bad news keeps on coming, in some non-Covid distressing news: ‘Assam: Potential fraud in PM-KISAN under scanner’. “The Union agriculture ministry has asked the Assam government for a report and a probe into a potential fraud in PM-KISAN, the federal cash-transfer programme for farmers, which allowed non-farmers to get cash as authorities halted further payments, an official said,” notes HT.
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Amphan batters West Bengal, Odisha’ is the lead story in The Hindu.
Keeping its reputation of being the record-keeper intact, the paper states, ‘Two in five COVID-19 patients have recovered’. It reports, “After a gap of nine days, the Union Health Ministry held its daily press briefing on COVID-19 on Wednesday, along with officials of the India Meteorological Department and the National Disaster Response Force, who were briefing on the progress of Cyclone Amphan.”
But diplomatic tussles hardly wait for pandemics and cyclones, as the paper reports: ‘Nepal’s new political map unacceptable, says India’. “Nepal’s new official map is ‘artificial’ and unacceptable to India, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Wednesday after Kathmandu unveiled a new political map that claimed Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh of Uttarakhand as part of its sovereign territory,” notes Hindu.
The Telegraph’s lead headline ‘Merciless and Monstrous’ and photograph say all that needs to be said about the destruction by Amphan. The accompanying report, ‘If Aila was 10, this is 110: Mamata’, quotes CM Mamata Banerjee as saying that the destruction caused by the cyclone Ampham was “ten-fold” the devastation caused by cyclone Aila.
Another report, ‘A dark reptile slithers in city’, takes a rather poetic approach to the destruction caused. “Calcutta’s water-logged roads looked like dark and slithering reptile on Wednesday night as howling winds continued to haunt the city’s deserted, Amphan-ravaged corridors,” writes Telegraph.
In a three-column lead, The Tribune notes that some of the “busiest routes might see flight operations” after domestic flights resume next week. But let’s not forget that “the country’s two busiest airports — Delhi and Mumbai — are in red zones,” it adds.
In an exclusive email interview to the paper, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur defended the Atma Nirbhar package and stated that “relief packages by other countries are on similar lines”.
Thakur played the defence position throughout the interview. When asked about morbid estimates of India’s economic growth, he said: “Agencies themselves have revised their figures numerous times in the past two months”.
An anchor report, ‘BSF men killed by militants in J&K, their weapons taken away’, notes the deaths of two Border Security Force men by “bike-borne militants”. This comes a day after Hizbul Mujahideen militant Junaid Sehrai was killed. A fortnight ago, Hizbul’s operational chief Riyaz Naikoo was also killed in South Kashmir.
Like Tribune, Mint also appears jittery at the idea of flights resuming at major Indian airports, including tier-I cities, most of which fall in red zones.
In “India Taxiiing To New Normal”, it harks back to Hardeep Singh Puri’s earlier remarks in May, where he said “the government cannot limit flights only between green zones”. If that were the case, “huge losses could be expected,” says an anonymous airline official. The paper also includes positive comments from IndiGo and SpiceJet spokesperson. According to Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director of SpiceJet: “This resumption (of domestic flights) will go a long way in lifting the overall economic sentiment in the country.”
In some grim news, ‘Ola fires 1,400 staff amid 95% fall in revenues’. Ola Cabs sacked more than a third of its employees in a shocking “one-time exercise”.
Business Standard also carries the sad news on Ola layoffs. The report is accompanied by a comprehensive infographic of job losses in other companies such as Oyo, Swiggy, Zomato, Uber, WeWork India etc.
In an exclusive interview, Expenditure Secretary T.V. Somanathan, who was also one of the architects of the Atmanirbhar India package, says the package has not been done out of fear of a ratings downgrade. He also agreed with the chief economic advisor’s estimate of 2% GDP growth in the next financial year, but alarmingly he said, “It could be lower”.