Worst may be over, but not 'Goodbye Covid', yet

Public health experts believe the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic may be behind us as the daily average cases continue to spiral down in the county. Yet, they are concerned about the festive season as the country has seen a spike in cases after almost every festival."Covid isn't over but the worst seems over," said Anurag Agrawal, director of the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB).He said almost all the virus samples being sequenced by the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (Insacog) are B.1.617.2 (Delta variant) or its sublineages, currently considered to be the same as Delta. "Differences, if any, between these sub-lineages are likely to be much smaller than those between Delta and other lineages," he said. Agrawal is one of the directors of Insacog.The festival season is a tension though. The month of October and two weeks after Diwali in November are crucial in pandemic management, according to the health ministry."It seems Covid-19 is in recess, but may come back with a new avatar (read new variant)," said Anoop Misra, chairman of Fortis-C-DOC Centre of Excellence for Diabetes, Metabolic Diseases and Endocrinology. "We have a greater confidence in our immune system (because of previous infection and vaccination)... but these are no 'magic arrows'."In several states, average daily cases have fallen to double-digits.Poonam Das, principal director at Max Labs, said the laboratory is testing about 1,000 PCR samples every day in Delhi-NCR. "Most of the days we don't even get a single sample positive and on occasional days there is one positive case," she said. "Covid virus seems to have lost steam unless nother lethal mutation happens."AIIMS director Randeep Guleria and CMC Vellore microbiology professor Gagandeep Kang, however, said the pandemic is not over yet."We have to watch out for positivity rate," Guleria said. Kang has other concerns too. "What made AY.4 jump like in August 2021?" she said.AY.4, a Delta sublineage, started as the main one in the UK and grew proportionately with other Delta variants. In August, it was found in significant number of samples sequenced, making it the predominant sublineage. "Now can we ask the important questions? Where, who was infected? What was the clinical picture and outcomes? Whom did they spread infection to and how good was the tracking?" Kang tweeted.Giridhara Babu, head, life course epidemiology, at the Public Health Foundation of India suggested setting up a long-term pandemic control programme "while the virus is evolving to cohabit with humans". "SARS-CoV-2 virus is likely to remain alive and around for a longer time. There may not be an end to it at all, which means stopping replication."

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'China’s aggression will continue to energise Quad'

Days after the first in-person Quad summit, US’ former Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster warned that in case Chinese aggression will continue, it will energise the Quad further and made a strong pitch to the US and India to join a maga-trade bloc to check Beijing’s economic domination of the region. “While the Quad is not focused explicitly on China, to the degree that Chinese continue to be aggressive in their actions, you're going to see continued energy in the Quad,” said Juster at a webinar organised this week by Centre for Global India Insights (CGII), a think tank focused on foreign affairs. “There is absolutely no doubt that as the Chinese behaviour has become more aggressive in the region, including on the northern border with India, but also in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, some claims in Bhutan and elsewhere, this has energized the Quad, and in particular, India's enthusiasm and participation in it,” said Mr Juster.He was responding to a question on how far the Quad can bolster Quad countries’ capacity to deal with China. Besides Juster, speakers at the panel discussion included Kanwal Sibal, former foreign secretary of India, Teresita Schaffer, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Northeast and South Asia, Anil Wadhwa, Former Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs, India; Prof. Srikanth Kondapalli, China expert at Jawaharlal University (JNU) and Satoru Nagao, Fellow Hudson, Institute. Speakers agreed that while China will continue to the be the subtext, the Quad is set to evolve into an organisation focused on economic and development cooperation among the four major democracies. “The Quad will make important contributions to the economics of the region and therefore to the security of the region,” said Teresita Schafer, former US diplomat dealing with South Asia and the author of India at The Global High Table. “The areas they have picked out for special emphasis after the most recent summit - vaccines, infrastructure and critical technology supply chains -- are tremendously important,” said Ms Schaefer, who joined the online discussion from Washington DC which hosted the first-ever physical Quad summit on September 24. “The rapidity with which the Quad agenda has been enlarged and deepened with full Indian participation signals that the Quad will continue to play an increasing role in India's strategic and economic thinking,” said Sibal. Juster argued that it’s important for India to bolster its economic power, which has been dented by the pandemic, to play a more proactive role in shaping the Quad. In this context, the envoy exhorted India and the US to sign Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP) to curb China’s ambitions for economic hegemony. Mr Juster’s exhortation came days after China announced its intention to join Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP). Alluding to the withdrawal of India and the US from trade pacts, including RCEP and TPP respectively, the former US diplomat underlined that “this leaves the economic domain largely to China, both in terms of setting the rules for regulatory standards, for developing the supply chain relationships, and for continuing to be the key economic player, which leads to broader strategic power in my view.” “The United States and India need to consider potentially acceding to and joining the TPP perhaps with some modifications to it,” he said.

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Amazon Great Indian Festival 2021 Sale Goes Live for Prime Members: Here Are the Best Deals Available Today

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Adani port deal before FS visit key to balance China

Finalising the deal for Colombo port expansion with Sri Lanka ahead of foreign secretary Harsh Shringla's forthcoming Colombo visit will help India to balance China's presence in the region. Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) had this week signed an agreement with India's Adani Group to build a new terminal next to a Chinese-run jetty at the Colombo port. "The agreement worth more than $700 million is the largest foreign investment ever in the port sector of Sri Lanka," SLPA said in a statement this week. One of the key objectives of Shringla's visit to Colombo is to push India-backed projects, persons familiar with the matter told ET. New Delhi has been concerned over the slow pace of implementation of projects backed by it in the island nation, they said. In February, plans to allow India into the strategic Colombo port were delayed when local trade unions opposed the plan. Later, the Mahindra Rajapaksa-led government urged India to build a new terminal adjoining the Chinese-operated Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT).Adani has set up a joint venture with Lankan group John Keells and SLPA as a minority partner. The first phase of the project is expected to be completed within two years.In 2017, after failing to repay a Chinese loan, Sri Lanka allowed China Merchants Port Holdings to take over the Hambantota port in the southern part of the country. The deal gave the Chinese company a 99-year lease but raised fears of a debt trap.It is no secret that a Chinese foothold at Hambantota backed by Gwadar port in Pakistan and Djibouti on the Horn of Africa could bolster Beijing's presence in the Indian Ocean.

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Not taken into confidence over peace deals: India

External affairs minister S Jaishankar has expressed regret that India's views were not sought when the Afghanistan peace deal was being worked out in Doha and said the jury is still out on how well the Taliban regime will govern the nation."Whatever were the peace deals struck in Doha, we weren't taken into confidence for that. The jury is still out on how this new regime governs Afghanistan. Are we concerned, yes, but we have to take time and study this," Jaishankar said at the fourth Annual Leadership Summit of US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) on Thursday. But he suggested that the Quad can play an important role. "Afghanistan presents issues for the region. The Indo-Pacific is an important region and should be based on a rules-based international order and respecting territorial integrity," Jaishankar said, adding, "In the past, we haven't worked together in South Asia, but that's changing, given the changing dynamics of the Indo-Pacific. The Quad platform is important on that front, and now Afghanistan too, given the security factor."He, however, tried to dispel China's fears over Quad. "India has a very substantial relationship with Beijing and Quad is for things, not against someone," Jaishankar said when asked about India and US's perspective on handling the issue of the emergence of Communist power. "We shouldn't be railroaded into a negative discourse and read from someone else's script.""As participants in the international order, we need to assess Beijing's movement and respond to that in the light of our own interest," the minister said, as he highlighted that the Quad is a strategic dialogue between nations aimed at discussing the natural consequence of events in the region and "not a gang to pitch one's personal agenda".

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Congress , Captain fire parting shots at each other

The war of words between Captain Amarinder Singh and the Congress high command escalated on Friday, a day after the former hinted about launching a regional party in election-bound Punjab.AICC attempted damage-control by trying to allude BJP's shadow around Singh. It also tried to accuse him of inaction in the sacrilege cases and tardy implementation Congress manifesto promises, which resulted in 'MLAs turn against him'.Singh hit back with a barrage of ridicule and scorn, besides asserting that the world knew about his secular credentials and that the Congress in Punjab was on its backfoot due to the mess the party leadership created for the state Congress after it was on a winning spree for over four years. Singh also asked AICC to explain what was the pressure Navyot Singh Sidhu could exert on the AICC that they were 'defenceless' against him.AICC general secretary in-charge Harish Rawat tried to dispute Singh's claim he was humiliated by the Gandhis and said it was the Congress that made Singh the CM for close to 10 years and three terms as PCC chief. Cautioning Singh against doing anything to make him its mask, Rawat said, "it appears from Amarinder Singh Ji's recent statements that he is under some sort of pressure. He should rethink, and not help the BJP directly or indirectly."Reacting to Rawat's comment regarding his secular credentials, Singh said, "even my worst critics and enemies could not doubt my integrity on this regard. But I am no longer surprised that a senior and seasoned Congress leader like Rawat is questioning my secular credentials. It is quite evident that I am no longer trusted and respected in the party that I have served loyally all these years." About Rawat's alluring to pressure on him, Singh said, "the only pressure I had been under for the past few months was that of my own loyalty to the Congress, because of which I continued to tolerate insult after insult."He again targeted the Gandhis: "Three weeks before stepping down as CM, I had offered my resignation to Sonia Gandhi but she had asked me to continue...Yet, the world saw the humiliation and the insult heaped on me, and yet Mr Rawat is making claims to the contrary. If this was not humiliation, then what was it?" He reminded Rawat how he had endorsed his regime's 'good track record' on implementing 2017 poll promises and that the polls would be fought under his leadership.

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IPL: Pacers, Rahul shape Punjab Kings' crucial win over Kolkata

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