Tennis foot soldiers struggle in time of coronavirus

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Governing in the times of a pandemic like this

Shastri Bhawan in Delhi is a hive of activity on any working day. Ministers, bureaucrats, officials and citizens visit the building complex that houses at least 11 ministries.Around two weeks ago, a delegation of 20 people from Punjab wanted to meet Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan at his office in Shastri Bhawan to discuss some payment issues. But, as a precautionary move, his ministry allowed only four from the delegation into the complex. Paswan wanted to minimise, if possible even avoid, face-to-face interactions. The coronavirus pandemic had reached India and the government wanted to minimise the spread. A week later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown for 21 days.Paswan’s ministry – which has been instrumental in capping the prices of masks, hand sanitisers and its raw material and also placing them under essential commodities – had started discouraging unnecessary visits to the ministry since 25 days. The measures were taken to check the huge surge in prices of these items in the country. “Any work that could be done over video conference or over the phone should be done that way,” the minister tells ET Magazine.The eight-time MP, who is often called “the greatest weather vane” of Indian politics, has also distributed 500 masks to his office staff. Even before the government stopped trains and flights, he had decided to cut down on “unnecessary travel in these times”.Several government departments had taken similar decisions by the first week of March. After all, government staff has to continue working to ensure relief measures are implemented smoothly. At the same time, the government also wanted to contain the spread of the virus. “We have told everyone that safety comes first,” Union Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Gangwar told ET Magazine on Monday. “We are running on skeletal staff. Many of our staff members are working from home.”Three weeks ago, when this reporter had visited the ministry, efforts to install hand sanitisers were in full swing. Within days, all the ministries had installed dispensers with alcohol-based sanitisers at the entrance. A note near the dispenser said: “Please use 3-4 drops to sanitise hands”.In the Parliament complex, thermal scanners that check body temperature have been installed at every metal detector point. Hand sanitisers were placed at several places in the building. The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were adjourned on Monday in the wake of the pandemic. “But when the Houses were functioning, we told our staff to always carry some object, like a file, in their hands so that they can overcome the natural tendency to shake hands,” says a senior official of Rajya Sabha, adding that it was just a precautionary measure.Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting even demonstrated social distancing. Photos of the meeting showed ministers sitting at least a meter apart. Sources said everyone is greeting others with a namskar, instead of a handshake.Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, who attended the meeting, says safety is of utmost importance now. “Apart from promoting the use of hand sanitisers, we asked our staff to take utmost care once they reach home also.”Union Shipping Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who is part of a group of ministers reviewing the actions to fight Covid-19, was going to his office at Transport Bhawan till Thursday. “We are working on minimising physical interaction. My family members keep calling from Gujarat asking me not to go to office. But some meetings were unavoidable,” he says. His office has declared flexible timings and only asks those living closer to the office to come to Transport Bhawan, that too only when it is unavoidable. The rest work from home.All the ministers this reporter spoke to said they were meeting only one or two persons at a time and that too when it cannot be avoided.Minorities Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi says till a few weeks ago, they used to have hundreds of people visiting his office and residence to get paperwork done for travel or medical treatment. “But we started discouraging people from coming in the last few weeks. Instead, we started collecting their requests first at the gate and then over the phone,” Naqvi says. The idea was to ensure people did not congregate at a point.After the lockdown, most ministries have implemented work from home. The health ministry, for one, is working almost 24/7. Yet only about 10% staff is still working from their office in Nirman Bhawan. Health Minister Harsha Vardhan is conducting most meetings through video conferences and calling officials over phone to get updates, to avoid face-to-face meetings. “We have streamlined our work in such a way that face-to-face interaction is minimal,” Vardhan says.The finance ministry -- another ministry crucial to keep the country and economy functioning ¡V has also implemented similar measures. Chairman of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs Pramod Chandra Mody says: "We have restricted our movement to office. It is entirely needbased. I go only when some work can¡¦t be done otherwise. I have also restricted oneto-one meetings to a bare minimum. Thanks to technology, most of the meetings and follow-ups are happening over video-conferencing and telephonically. I get the doorknobs cleaned from time to time to avoid the spread via surfaces."In Uttar Pradesh, the health minister has quarantined himself in his home for 14 days after he attended a party in Lucknow where singer Kanika Kapoor, who tested positive for Covid-19, was also present. Health Minister Jai Pratap Singh said on Wednesday he was awaiting the results of the second test after the first one tested negative. "I am in self-isolation at home and will resume fulltime work after my second test results. If any file is very important, it reaches my home so that I can clear it. But I take all possible precautions," he added. Till it is all clear, it is work from home for ministers and bureaucrats.

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The tools that are saving the day

The rapid spread of Covid-19 has forced countries to use every trick in the book to contain the disease. Some countries, like South Korea and Singapore, have done a better job than, say, Italy and Spain.Asian countries have used a range of technologies in their fight against the pandemic, raising questions about excessive surveillance and the violation of citizens’ privacy. Here is a snapshot of some of the tech tools being deployed in different countries. 74867237 Location TrackingPossibly the most commonly used technology by governments, tracking people’s whereabouts through the location information provided by their phones has been crucial to identifying where an infected person went before being quarantined and how many people were in close proximity to the patient. Israel has allowed its internal security agency the use of its citizens’ location data for 30 days. South Korea, China and Taiwan have also used location-tracking widely to limit the transmission of the virus. However, in Europe, which has stricter laws on data protection, Germany and Italy are using anonymised location data to identify public spaces where people are gathering in groups by defying lockdowns. 74867240 Mobile Apps A startup in the UK recently launched an app for people to self-report their symptoms. C-19 Covid Symptom Tracker, which was downloaded 7.5 lakh times in three days, helps identify high-risk areas, among other things. South Korea has an app called Corona 100m that has mapped the locations of Covid-19 patients and alerts users if they come within 100 metres of an infected person.India is also set to launch an app that will tell users if they came in contact with someone who later tested positive for Covid-19, as reported by ET on March 26. The app will be based on location data obtained from the infected person’s smartphone. It will also use short-distance Bluetooth signals between phones, like Singapore’s TraceTogether app, which helps authorities trace contacts of a patient.In China, apps developed by Alibaba and Tencent give people a colour code based on their health condition and travel history. This code, decided by a big data-driven algorithm, will determine whether a person gains entry into a mall or a subway station, or can travel between cities. 74867248 CCTVs When a family of three in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district tested positive for Covid-19 after returning from Italy, local authorities realised the family had visited several places and met many people for a week before they were quarantined. Reviewing CCTV footage from the areas they had been to was one of the methods the local administration used to track down 900 people the family could have potentially infected. South Korea and Singapore, too, have used CCTVs extensively in contact-tracing. 74867256 Smart ImagingIn an effort to enable contactless and rapid temperature detection, China is using AI-powered thermal cameras to identify those in a crowd who have a fever. The country is also deploying facial-recognition systems to identify those not wearing masks. 74867268 Robots & DronesIn early March, a new isolation ward was opened in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus outbreak started. What’s interesting about this ward is that it is entirely manned by robots that take patients’ temperature, give them food and drugs, and disinfect the ward. China has also used robots in quarantine facilities, and so has Singapore to clean hospitals. The use of robots spares healthcare workers the risk of contracting the virus. In some parts of China, the police have used drones fitted with cameras and loudspeakers to disperse crowds and direct individuals in the streets to return home. 74867275

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PM to focus on Covid-19 in 'Mann Ki Baat' today

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No fuel crisis in India; enough stock of petrol, diesel, LPG available to last lockdown: IOC

India, the world's third largest energy consumer, has enough petrol, diesel and cooking gas (LPG) in stocks to last way beyond the three-week nationwide lockdown as all plants and supply locations are fully operational, Indian Oil Corp (IOC) Chairman Sanjiv Singh said. Singh, who continued to oversee the mammoth operations of ensuring that fuel reaches every nook and corner despite bereavement of his father on the day 21-day lockdown was declared, said there is no shortage of any fuel in the country and customers should not resort to panic booking of LPG refills."We have mapped demand for all fuel for entire April and beyond. We have refineries operating at levels enough to meet all of the demand. Besides all bulk storage points, LPG distributorships and petrol pumps are functioning normally. There is absolutely no shortage of any fuel," he told PTI. The nationwide lockdown that has shut businesses, suspended flights, stopped trains and brought almost entire vehicular movement to a halt, has impacted fuel demand with petrol, diesel and aviation turbine fuel (ATF) showing negative growth (degrowth or fall in demand).With most cars and two-wheelers going off the road, petrol demand has fallen by 8 per cent in March while diesel demand has been down 16 per cent. ATF demand has fallen by 20 per cent, he said. "LPG consumption however continues to grow and we are servicing all customers," he said adding refill demand saw more than 200 per cent jump as the lockdown was announced.The refills sought were a result of panic booking as in the absence of the exhausting existing ones, many could not take deliveries of new cylinders, he said adding even customers with double cylinder connections had ordered for refills without exhausting even one cylinder. "There is absolutely no need for panic booking. We have enough stocks to meet all demand," he said."When a customer resorts to panic booking, it puts unnecessary strain on the system as the requirement is immediately transmitted to bottling locations which make additional refills, transport it to bulk location and onward to the distributor. "Distributors use already stretched delivery boys to physically deliver the cylinder to customer home only to return back with the filled cylinder as the customer refused delivery because existing ones hadn't exhausted."Singh said due to lower demand of liquid fuels, refinery run-rates have been lowered by 25-30 per cent - meaning they would produce up to 30 per cent less of all fuel petrol, diesel, ATF, naphtha and LPG. Every barrel of crude oil when processed produces a certain percentage of petrol, diesel, kerosene/ATF and LPG. So lower processing of crude would result in lower production of all fuel.

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How countries are using technology to fight coronavirus

The technologies being used against the pandemic are raising questions about excessive surveillance.

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French chess team quarantined in Russia plans next move

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