New Delhi: Guess what? The coronavirus pandemic made prime news! That and the usual suspects the Gandhi family.
Mirror Now discussed the latest horror tale associated with Covid-19 — WHO conceding that airborne transmission of the disease could be possible.
Dr Subramanian Swaminathan, senior consultant at Gleneagles Global Hospital, said, “We need to be very careful as it has huge public health and infection control implications. Once we say it’s airborne, we have to invest in negative pressure rooms for everybody and that’s not possible.”
“The risk of airborne transmission goes up when there is a crowd, in a clustered and poorly ventilated environment and humidity is going to make it worse,” added Lilavati Hospital’s Dr Shashank Joshi.
Anchor Tanvi Shukla asked, “What does this change for the layman? I was already wearing a mask outdoors, do I now have to wear it 24×7?”
Dr Rajesh M. Parikh, Director of Medical Research at Jaslok Hospital explained, “No, you don’t need to wear it 24×7. It’s virtually impossible to do so. It’s very important to understand that there are subtle nuances between droplet borne and airborne.”
Airborne transmission implies that the infection is spread through particles that are less than 5 micrometre in diameter, which is much smaller than cough droplets. Oh dear.
Back to Chinese troops in Ladakh, reports now reveal they have made their way into Bhutanese territory. NewsX discussed China’s recent unruly behaviour in this context.
“The Chinese for a period of time have been looking at the area along the LAC from a strategic point of view where we are doing road construction,” said Lt Gen. (retd.) P.J.S. Pannu, former 14 Corps Commander, in an exclusive interview.
“They are on the backfoot against the whole world and are trying to flex their muscles to prove that they are not weak,” he added.
He also claimed that the Indian Army has an edge over the PLA, adding that “the Chinese do not have any combat experience on mountains”.
On Times Now, it was all about the Congress and the Gandhi family, but not in a good way.
Anchor Navika Kumar dissected donations made to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, which is now to be probed by the home ministry, and discussed how G.V.K. Industries donated money to the foundation between 2006-2007 and then signed the Mumbai airport deal in 2006.
“Hard evidence is a matter of investigation, bring it out, put it to the people and file a chargesheet if you believe that there is a case,” pointed out senior advocate Sanjay Hegde.
BJP’s favourite spokesperson Sambit Patra hit back, “We are having an investigation. We need to have faith in the judiciary of this country. If this was Modiji’s foundation, the heavens would have parted and leftists and liberals would have rained. All these people would have taken on Mr Modi.”
Lawyer Shehzad Poonawalla agreed with Patra and said, “Let’s stop calling it a trust (RGF). It’s actually a family of ‘distrust’ and a foundation of ‘mistrust’.”
Ending his argument on a philosophical note, Hegde noted, “Whatever we do today, will come back to us tomorrow.” Deep indeed.
On News 18 India, anchor Amish Devgan indulged in some wordplay and declared that the government “does not trust the Gandhi trust”.
BJP’s Shahnawaz Hussain said an investigation into the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation was the need of the hour. “The Gandhi family has sprinkled salt on our countries’s wounds by accepting donations from China,” he claimed.
Congress spokesperson Rohan Gupta defended his party by attacking Modi — “They said Corona will be here only for 21 days, now it has been more than 100 days. They want to escape from people’s questions, that is why they (Modi government) are targeting Congress.”
Aaj Tak’s Rohit Sardana was on criminal affairs. He asked if gangster Vikas Dubey is beyond the reach of the law.
Dubey has managed to evade arrest since Thursday last week, after eight policemen were gunned near Kanpur during an attempt to arrest him.
Sardana, however, got confused and kept saying Vinay Dubey instead of Vikas.
BJP spokesperson Shalabh Mani Tripathi defended the Yogi government and pointed out that Dubey was a life-long member of the Samajwadi Party.
However, Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajeev Rai said that during the investigation, the party’s name had not come up even once.
Rajat Sharma, on India TV, brought a new angle to the Vikas Dubey case. “Today I want to talk about something about which everyone knows, but no one dares to speak up”, he said.
He talked about how some people on social media were eulogising Dubey from a casteist angle.
Sharma objected to the fact that people were supporting Dubey on the basis of his caste. “Just because he is a Brahmin, some people are calling him a lion, a brave person and even innocent”.
“I want to shake up the soul of those who are supporting him. He should be punished and not glorified”, Sharma added, rather angrily.