So yesterday India created a record when Covid 19 new cases breached the 25,000 (per day) mark for the first time. The toll also raced past 21,000 mark. Both these figures indicate that pandemic in India is still not abated and on the contrary it is rising day by day. The overall figures for Mumbai stand at 87,856 (cases) and 5064 (deaths), where as Maharashtra state’s corresponding figures are 223,724 (cases) and 9448 (deaths). The total number of cases in the country now is 768,000+, with discharge of 475,800+ patients, which translates into recovery of 62% as of date.
United States of America-on this Tuesday saw record one day spike of 60,000+ cases, as total number of cases crossed 3 million mark.
In one more Covid pandemic related story from USA-The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had announced on Tuesday that foreign students can not stay in USA taking only on line courses in the time of pandemic. In response to this Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harword University yesterday filed a lawsuit against Trump administration’s move to deport foreign students unless they took in person courses, even as universities across USA raced against time to devise ways to retain their international contingent. Their lawsuit say’s “That ICE’s action leaves hundreds of thousands of international with no educational options within US. Just weeks from the start of the fall semester, these students are largely unable to transfer to universities providing on campus instruction, notwithstanding ICE’s suggestion that they might do so to avoid removal from the country. Moreover, for many students returning to their home countries to participate in on line instruction is impossible, impracticable, prohibitively expensive, and/or dangerous.” This law suit, which will be backed by other universities and academic institutions, came when all the institutes are trying to devise the ways to meet criteria for foreign students so that they can remain in USA for their educations. Most of the US universities and educational institute survive by imparting educations to foreign students, and all of them are worried about how will they survive without foreign students. The other side of the story is the concern of immigration hardliners, who always voice their deep concern/suspicion that many foreign students take away American jobs.
In my opinion the ICE’s order is not at all heartening for the students who are already in US, as most of them might have paid fees for in campus education, and now they are asked to go back to their home countries for on line educations may not be feasible in present scenario, as there are no flights from US to many countries and even if there are flights, they are so expensive that students will not be able to afford the same. To me it looks like a election gimmick by Trump administration, to please American voters.
In a another news story-Indian govt, through their Home Ministry has set up an inter ministerial committee to coordinate investigations into the alleged violations of provision of the ‘Prevention of Money Laundering Act, I-T Act and Foreign Contributions Regulation Act, among others, by three trusts linked to Gandhis- Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT) and Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust (IGMT). This panel will be headed by a special director of Enforcement Directorate (ED). Apart from the ED, the I-T department or finance ministry, are expected to be represented on the panel. It has been alleged that public donations made to Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) were diverted to Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) during the UPA tenure. Allegation is that it can be just no coincidence that Sonia Gandhi was Chairperson of UPA, and she was also Chairperson of both RGF and RGCT, and both her children Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are trustees. Earlier media reports have also mentioned that even RGF have received donations from Chinese embassy and other Chinese companies during UPA tenure. As usual Congress spoke persons including Rahul Gandhi have started blaming BJP led NDA govt for personal vendetta. So in the coming days there will be lots of media reports and TV discussions on this issue.
Waiting for your feed backs/views/comments on this blog.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
9th July 2020
R. N. Mungale.
It is worrying that Corona pandemic is not anated but it is increasing..
MIT has rightly filed a case.