‘Frontier Nagaland Territory’: Naga body says talks with Centre at an advanced stage

New Delhi, Dec 15 (IANS) The world can expect another pandemic any day, due to virus spillover from animals, said Mario C.B. Raviglione, former Director of the Global Tuberculosis (TB) Programme at the World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday.

Speaking exclusively to IANS, Raviglione said that a highly interconnected world is the perfect way for the spread of another pandemic, like COVID-19.

“Everyone is expecting another pandemic. This may happen any day because we live in a very interconnected world,” said Raviglione, Full Professor of Global Health at the University of Milan, Italy.

“Italy was the first country that was hit in the Western world by Covid. And that is obviously linked to the rapid transportation means that we have nowadays. So in an interconnected world, in a global village, apart from some countries, they are trying their best to rebuild barriers. We know that they exist, unfortunately.

The Professor noted that some countries are trying their best to rebuild barriers by means of conflicts, but we all are “interconnected”.

“It is such that, any, particularly respiratory type of disease, viruses, as we have seen, can spread very, very quickly,” he said.

He explained that the majority of newly emerging diseases are viral, and they are emerging mostly from the animal world. That means they are zoonosis, like Covid.

In the recent past, the world has seen COVID-19, Ebola, chikungunya, West Nile fever, the most recent mPox, and H5N1 influenza — all related to the animal kingdom in one way or another.

Despite the emerging threats, the preparedness by countries is extremely low, and this will have several implications, Raviglione lamented.

“You need to invest. And governments are not particularly keen to invest in something for preparation, for preparedness. They like to invest more because it’s more visible. If I have a disease, then I’m going to massively mobilise resources to treat the disease. But it will then be too late to prevent it. So, the issue of preparedness is fundamental,” the expert said.

He suggested preparedness hubs to counter and detect new threats in the early phase, citing the example of the Covid pandemic, where world countries were not prepared, and how vaccine inequality led to the loss of so many lives, particularly in the low-income countries.

“Preparedness implies that you need to have the support of laboratories, the support of pharma and biochemical, or the biochemical sector to rapidly develop the test, not just in Europe or in North America, but also in India, also in other countries,” Raviglione said.

He urged that the BRICS countries should have this kind of mechanism in place in such a way that if there is a need for a vaccine, then certain conditions can be applied regardless of the patent.

(Rachel V Thomas can be contacted at rachel.t@ians.in)

–IANS

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New Delhi, Dec 11 (IANS) The Supreme Court has granted anticipatory bail to an accused facing allegations of molestation and misbehaviour of a minor girl under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

A bench headed by Justice Hrishikesh Roy took note of the fact that the accused has cooperated with the investigation and the charge sheet in the case is yet to be filed.

Asking the accused to further cooperate with the investigation, the Bench, also comprising Justice SVN Bhatti, said that in the event of arrest, he will be allowed to go on bail on furnishing a bail bond of Rs 20,000 to the satisfaction of the Arresting Officer.

“As the prosecutrix is a neighbour of the petitioner, the petitioner must maintain physical as well as virtual distance from the prosecutrix and other witnesses in the case,” it added.

Disposing of the accused’s special leave petition, the apex court granted liberty to Rajasthan Police and the informant to move for cancellation of bail, if any violation of this condition is brought to the notice of the trial court.

The accused, represented by criminal lawyer Namit Saxena, moved the apex court seeking pre-arrest bail which was declined by the Rajasthan High Court. The case was registered at Gadhmora police station in Karauli for offences under Sections 354(A) 354(B), 504 of the IPC read with Sections 7 and 8 of the POCSO Act against the petitioner.

According to the FIR, when the complainant had visited the accused’s house to charge her phone, he allegedly molested and misbehaved with her.

Advocate Saxena contended the prosecutrix’s family, motivated by animosity, fabricated a false story and used the prosecutrix to falsely implicate the accused with the intent of putting him in jail.

“The case against the petitioner is completely false and therefore despite investigating for almost two years, nothing has been found against him at all. That there is no evidence on record, nor has any legitimate proof been given by the prosecutrix to substantiate her allegations. That many family members of petitioner’s family were present in the house at the time of the alleged incident, it is highly unlikely that the events occurred as described in the FIR,” said the petition.

–IANS

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Nagpur, Dec 18 (IANS) Taking strong umbrage over Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s comments on Dr B. R. Ambedkar, Shiv Sena (UBT) President Uddhav Thackeray called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to apologise for the utterances or quit, here on Wednesday.

Thackeray, a former Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Chief Minister, played the tapes of Shah’s comments that have sparked a massive political row in Maharashtra and other parts of the country, especially among the Dalit communities.

Shah said that rather than chanting ‘Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, if you invoke the name of God, you will get heaven in seven births’ – that has kicked up a storm among Dalits and Ambedkar followers.

Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Thackeray said that Shah would “not dare to say such a thing unless prodded by the BJP-RSS”, and demanded to know whether Prime Minister Modi and Maharashtra Ministers in the Union Cabinet were in concurrence with it.

“Maharashtra has given two great sons to the world, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Dr Ambedkar who gave us the Constitution. After ranting ‘Nehru, Nehru’ for years, they are attacking Dr Ambedkar. We will not tolerate any kind of insults to them,” fumed Thackeray.

He said that Modi-Shah must apologise to the nation or quit for the slight to Ambedkar that has shaken the poor and downtrodden masses, warning that they will not forgive the BJP.

Countering Shah, SS (UBT) Deputy Leader Sushma Andhare declared that Ambedkar is indeed a divine personality for millions who worship him daily for his services to the downtrodden, the deprived and the poorest sections of society.

Other MVA leaders like Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) General Secretary Dr Jitendra Awhad, Congress’ state President Nana F. Patole and Dr. Nitin Raut, SS (UBT)’s Priyanka Chaturvedi and Sanjay Raut, and Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi President Prakash Ambedkar, also attacked the BJP and Shah for displaying their “utter contempt for Dr. Ambedkar and the Constitution”.

Thackeray contended that the BJP — which secured a brute majority in the November 2024 Maharashtra Assembly polls — has continued to denigrate the icons like Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Dr B.R. Ambedkar, Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and Savitribai Phule.

“A former governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari had made objectionable remarks against the legendary Phule couple… The statue of the Chhatrapati (in Sindhudurg) crashed just eight months after it was inaugurated by the PM… And now Shah’s statement in the Parliament,” said Thackeray.

Lashing out at Shah, Thackeray pointedly asked Shah, “whether you will get Heaven by chanting ‘Modi, Modi’ daily”, adding that now the BJP’s attitude against the respected and venerated personalities ‘has crossed all tolerable limits’ in the past few years.

–IANS

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