NEWS

In a move to woo farmers in eastern Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Saturday visit the poll-bound state's Balrampur district and inaugurate the Saryu Nahar National Project.

According to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) release, the 6,623-kilometer-long canal system will provide assured water for irrigation of over 14 lakh hectares of land to the benefit of about 29 lakh farmers of nine districts in the region – Bahraich, Shravasti, Gonda, Balrampur, Siddharthnagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur, and Maharajganj.

The PMO said although work on the project began in 1978, it was delayed due to lack of continuity of budgetary support, interdepartmental coordination, and adequate monitoring and was not completed even after more than four decades.

The Mi-17 V5 helicopter accident in which India lost its first Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Bipin Rawat, his wife and 11 other personnel is a tragedy that would count among the worst to befall the armed forces of any nation; one doesn’t lose one’s top military official this way. But, accidents do happen and if one were to think back to accidents of similar gravity then two come to mind. The first was the Tu‑124 aircraft crash at Jorhat on 4 November 1977 in which then-Prime Minister Morarji Desai was travelling. The five aircrew in the cockpit section died while the prime minister came out unscathed and walked to the nearest village from where he was picked up; God was working overtime that day. The second, not so fortunate – on 22 November 1963, a Chetak helicopter crashed near Poonch and we lost two Lt Generals, One Major General and an Air Vice Marshal, besides the pilot. This terrible loss of the top brass was to be headline news on all papers, but at midnight that night John Kennedy was assassinated; as reports go, all editors worked through the night to modify their lead stories due to these two ‘accidents.’

Hours after receiving a ‘signed’ letter from the Centre accepting most of their demands, farmer Unions on Thursday ended their year-long agitation and decided to leave the sites they had occupied on national highways on Delhi borders with tents at Singhu, a key protest venue, being wound up and similar action expected at other places including several toll plazas in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.

Putting off celebrations in deference to the last rites of CDS Rawat and other personnel who died in the chopper crash, the Unions will take out a victory procession only on Saturday. All toll plazas are to be cleared by December 15 even as Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) said the farmers are “suspending” the agitation that began 378 days ago and would meet on January 15 to assess the government’s actions on their demands.

The World Health Organisation expressed concerns on Thursday that rich countries spooked by the emergence of the Omicron variant could step up the hoarding of Covid-19 vaccines and strain global supplies again, complicating efforts to stamp out the pandemic.

The UN health agency, after a meeting of its expert panel on vaccination, reiterated its advice to governments against the widespread use of boosters in their populations so that well-stocked countries instead can send doses to low-income countries that have largely lacked access to them.

"What is going to shut down disease is for everybody who is especially at risk of disease to become vaccinated," said Dr Kate O'Brien, head of WHO's department of immunization, vaccines and biologicals. "We seem to be taking our eye off that ball in countries." Meanwhile, the European Union's drug regulator said Thursday it is closely following the spread of the new variant and whether new vaccines will be required to fight it. Vaccine makers are racing to update their Covid-19 shots against the newest coronavirus threat even before it's clear a change is needed.