The coronavirus in Japan has brought not just an epidemic of infections, but also an onslaught of bullying and discrimination against the sick, their families and health workers. A government campaign to raise awareness seems to be helping, at least for medical workers. But it's made only limited headway in countering the harassment and shunning that may be discouraging people from seeking testing and care and hindering the battle against the pandemic. When Arisa Kadono tested positive and was hospitalized in early April, she was only identified as a woman in her 20s in food business. Soon, friends let her know that groundless rumours were circulating: that the family-run bar she helps with was a hotbed of virus; that she had dined with a popular baseball player who was infected earlier but she has never met; that she was sneaking out of the hospital and spreading the virus. It was as if I was a criminal, Kadono said in an interview from her home in Himeji, western Japan, after ending

Former New Zealand head coach and current England defence chief John Mitchell believes some good may come for rugby union from the coronavirus if it creates "greater professionalism" thanks to a concentration of talent at fewer clubs worldwide, including Super Rugby. Even before COVID-19 saw this year's edition of Super Rugby suspended after seven rounds in March, there was a widespread view the southern hemisphere's now 15-string premier club tournament had become increasingly unattractive for fans and broadcasters alike, with talent spread too thinly. The pandemic has already had a huge financial impact on rugby and there are concerns current club structures won't survive the outbreak fully intact. England's Rugby Football Union has lost ?15 million ($19 million) so far due to the crisis, with Twickenham chiefs forecasting a total loss of ?107 million if the autumn internationals are cancelled. Meanwhile Rugby Australia, already reeling after reaching a multi-million dollar ...

Taliban leaders searched their ranks, including the much-feared Haqqani network, and on Sunday said they are not holding Mark R Frerichs, a Navy veteran turned contractor who was disappeared in Afghanistan in late January. "We don't have any information about the missing American," Sohail Shaheen, Taliban's political spokesman, told the AP in a message on Sunday. A second Taliban official familiar with the talks with the United States said "formally and informally" the Taliban have notified US officials they are not holding Frerichs. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. Washington's peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who negotiated a peace deal with the Taliban signed in February to allow America and NATO countries to withdraw their troops and end decades of war, asked for Frierchs' release during his meetings this week in the Middle Eastern State of Qatar where the Taliban maintain a political office. In a statement late Saturday by the ..

Actor Sheridan Smith has welcomed her first child with fiance, insurance broker Jamie Horn. "The Royle Family" star shared a picture of their baby boy clutching onto her finger on Instagram on Saturday. "Our little man has arrived! We are both completely overwhelmed with love," Smith, 38, captioned the picture. No other details about the child have been revealed. Smith, also known for starring in sitcoms "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps" and drama series "Cilla" about the life of English singer Cilla Black, announced her pregnancy last October.

They prepared for icy cold and trained to be on the watch for polar bears, but a pandemic just wasn't part of the program. Now dozens of scientists are waiting in quarantine for the all-clear to join a year-long Arctic research mission aimed at improving the models used for forecasting climate change, just as the expedition reaches a crucial phase. For a while, the international mission looked like it might have to be called off, as country after country went into lockdown because of the virus, scuppering plans to bring fresh supplies and crew to the German research vessel Polarstern that's been moored in the high Arctic since last year. News of the pandemic caused jitters among those already on board, said Matthew Shupe, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado and co-leader of the MOSAiC expedition. "Some people just wanted to be home with their families," he told The Associated Press in a video interview from the German port of Bremerhaven, where he and about 90 other

Air India crew members, who reside in Gautam Buddh Nagar and are involved in flight operations to evacuate Indian citizens stuck abroad due to lockdown, can return home from Delhi only after their COVID-19 test results are found negative, officials said on Saturday. The crew would be examined for COVID-19 through the real-time Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction or the RT-PCR test, considered a gold standard but costly and time-consuming process as against the rapid anti-body tests, and put on duty again if found fit, the officials said. The Gautam Buddh Nagar police had requested the management of the national carrier to accommodate its crew members that reside in Noida and Greater Noida in Delhi for the duration of the Centre's Vande Bharat Mission. The request was made because Gautam Buddh Nagar in western Uttar Pradesh falls in the Red Zone' and the to and fro movement of the flight crew could increase the risk of COVID-19 infection, the officials said. "A letter from .

The concessions given by the UP government to traders will prove to be a pace setter for the revival of economic activity in the state at a time when the nation is going through a rough phase due to the COVID-19 outbreak, UP Vyapaari Kalyan Board chairman Ravi Kant Garg said. He said the exemption from labour laws for three years is bound to open gates for economic growth that was hit by the coronavirus lockdown. Such measures will spur economic activities and boost the investment climate in the state, Garg said while talking to a group of reporters on Saturday evening. He further said that exemption of 46 variety of fruits and vegetables from the clutches of Mandi Adhiniyam Suchana through Krashi Utapadan Mandi Adhiniyam (Sansodhan) ordinance 2020 would boost the trade. It is bound to help farmers as well as traders, he added. Now, the farmer would be free to sell his produce outside Mandi Parishad. Exemption of Mandi shulk (Mandi tax) from 46 variety of grains would provide maximum .

Haji Mohammed Sajid could not control his emotion as he came out of the Lucknow airport on Saturday evening after an Air India flight arrived here from Sharjah with 182 Indians on board as part of the government's 'Vande Bharat Mission'. Kissing the floor of the airport, much to the surprise of the officials and mediapersons present there, a teary eyed Sajid said, "I was missing my parents and India very much." "I thank the government for helping me reunite with my family after being stranded abroad for the past couple of months," said the Ayodhya resident, who worked as garment designer in the United Arab Emirates. With just one coffee vending machine and a fruit cart, the airport wore a forlorn look, while the arrival board displayed the lone flight IX184 that arrived around 9.00 pm. CISF jawans maintained a strict watch on the activities of the visitors as passengers started coming out of the airport at 10.30 pm. They were screened and sent to quarantine. "This is the first flight

The Jawaharlal Nehru University on Saturday announced its academic calendar and said exams will be completed by July 31. JNU vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar said the academic calendar has been unanimously approved by all the deans of Schools and Chairpersons of Special Centres. "Tentatively, students are expected to return to JNU campus between June 25 to and 30 so that they can complete their remaining academic components and complete their examinations. Examinations will be completed by July 31," he said. The next semester for the continuing students will start from August 1. Even if the examination results are not ready by July 31, students will have the opportunity to provisionally register and move on to the next semester. The entire monsoon semester registration process will be completely online making it easy for the students to register even from their homes," he said. The deadline for research scholars to submit their theses/dissertations has been extended to December ...

Doctors at the government-run ESIC Hospital here committed a "mistake" by not testing samples of a 16-year-old girl, who later died of Covid-19, Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Saturday. The girl breathed her last on Thursday at the B Barooah Cancer Institute. Her samples, which were taken after her death, tested positive for coronavirus infection/ "The girl first went to ESIC Hospital with all symptoms like fever and pain in legs. It was a mistake by doctors that her samples were not sent for testing... It is a matter of concern," Sarma told reporters here. Talking about the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), which was closed for new patients after a doctor at the facility tested positive on Thursday, he said a total of 529 samples have been collected from doctors, nurses, professors and superintendent of the institute for testing "Out of those, reports of 357 samples came out negative and one was positive. Results of the rest of the samples are awaited," .

The ruling TMC in West Bengal and opposition BJP on Saturday traded barbs over ferrying migrant labourers, after Union Home Minister Amit Shah flagged the issue of "non-cooperation" by the state government, leaving the Mamata Banerjee-led party fuming, which accused him of spreading lies. In what is certain to escalate tension between the state government and the Centre, Shah, in a letter alleged that West Bengal was not allowing trains with migrant workers to reach and termed it as an "injustice" to these labourers. The state BJP unit claimed the West Bengal government is only interested in bringing back people from a "particular community". TMC leader and nephew of the chief minister, Abhishek Banerjee, earlier in the day tweeted: "A HM failing to discharge his duties during this crisis speaks after weeks of silence, only to mislead people with a bundle of lies! Ironically he's talking about the very ppl who've been literally left to fate by his own Govt. Mr @AmitShah, prove your ...

The West Bengal government has asked the heads of all hospitals to ensure that immunisation programmes against vaccine-preventable diseases continue in full steam amid the Covid-19 outbreak. Immunisation should go on during COVID-19 outbreak to protect children and pregnant women from 'vaccine-preventable diseases' (VPD), the health and family welfare department said in a notification. It was addressed to the superintendents of all medical colleges and hospitals and the chief medical officer of health of all districts. Copy of the notification issued on May 6 was made available on Saturday.

At least five migrant labourers were killed and 13 others injured when a truck in which they were travelling overturned in Madhya Pradesh's Narsinghpur district, a police official said on Sunday. The accident took place near Patha village on Saturday night whennearly 20 migrant labourers were going in the truck to Jhansi and Etah in Uttar Pradesh from Hyderabad, Additional Superintendent of Police Rajesh Tiwari said. Five labourers were killed and 13 others were injured after the mangoes-laden vehicle overturned, he said. The injured persons were admitted to the district hospital for treatment, he added.

Senior Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Sunday said the Maharashtra government should give permission to private vehicles for ferrying migrant labourers to their native places during the lockdown. Raising concern over migrant workers setting off for their hometowns on foot, Raut said they were falling sick and some have also died. "The labour class is walking back home, this is not a good picture. Their children are with them. Railways is not ready to operate trains for them. The state government should give permission to private vehicles to ply," Raut tweeted. "People are falling ill while walking. Some have died. Even then their walking hasn't stopped, the Rajya Sabha member further said. Sixteen migrant workers sleeping on rail tracks while returning to Madhya Pradesh were crushed to death by a goods train in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra in the early hours of Friday. The labourers, rendered jobless due to the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, had set off for their ...

He hops off a helicopter, whips off his shades and makes a dash through the grounds towards his home to give his mother a surprise, but there she is, waiting at the door with a pooja thali' in her hand. That admittedly cheesy scene between Shah Rukh Khan and Jaya Bachchan from the blockbuster Hindi film Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham was playing in Sonali Puri's mind when she was on a Mumbai-Jammu flight to give her mother a surprise last month. Her mother was at the door just as she had imagined but instead of a thali' was a hand sanitiser! Good hygiene is a blessing in times of coronavirus, my mother told me, laughed the 37-year-old. That was in mid-March, a few days before the coronavirus forced lockdown began on March 25. And home in Jammu is where Puri still is, the short vacation turning into extended mother-daughter downtime, both recalibrating their equations as they spend focused time with each other after years. This Mother's Day, the first time in years perhaps that Puri has been .

Mizoram has registered a 10 per cent drop in Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) in 2019-20 fiscal, making it to the second spot in the country after Nagaland. State health minister R Lalthangliana said the IMR has dropped from 15 per cent to 5 per cent (per 1000 live births), citing the latest Sample Registration System (SRS) bulletin. With 10-point drop in IMR in 2019-20, Mizoram is the best-performing state in the country, he said. Over the past three years, the state has achieved 27- point drop in IMR. The minister attributed the achievement to efforts of healthcare workers and support of people. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan had on Saturday congratulated Mizoram and Lalthangliana on the achievement. The state had recorded 21 per cent IMR in 2016-2017, with 405 infants dying before attaining the age of one. During 2017-18, it fell to 20 per cent, and the following year to 15 per cent. According to Sample Registration System (SRS) bulletin released recently, Nagaland tops ..

A special train carrying 1,140 migrant workers stranded here in the lockdown has left Mangaluru railway station for Jharkhand. Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel and Vedavyas Kamath, MLA, were present at the railway station on Saturday night when the train left. Kamath said the workers who had registered on the state governments Seva Sindhu portal were brought to the railway station in Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation buses. A health check-up was carried out before they boarded the train. The district administration also provided food packets and water to the migrants at the station. Three more trains will leave from Mangaluru for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand soon, he said. Meanwhile, in a statement, Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner Sindhu P Rupesh said train services are being arranged for migrant workers who have registered their names on the Seva Sindhu portal. The workers will be informed when trains are arranged to their destinations and they .

In a major administrative reshuffle amid the lockdown, the Madhya Pradesh government has transferred 50 Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, including some additional chief secretaries, principal secretaries and a former chief secretary. This is the first major bureaucratic rejig by the BJP-led state government since Shivraj Singh Chouhan became chief minister in March this year. As per the order issued on Saturday night, former chief secretary Gopal Reddy has been posted as chairman of the revenue board at Gwalior, I C P Keshari as vice chairman of the Narmada Valley Development Authority, Vinod Kumar as additional chief secretary (ACS) of the general administration department and J N Kansotia as ACS of the animal husbandry department, official sources said. Besides, Anupam Rajan is posted as principal secretary of the public relations and higher education departments. The government has removed P Narhari as commissioner of the public relations department and ...

Mizoram's corona-free status can be attributed to the discipline of its people and the combined efforts of the church, NGOs and administration, says Chief Minister Pu Zoramthanga. While happy that his state has managed to contain the spread of COVID-19, the chief minister told PTI he was worried about the economic slump due to the lockdown and the threat posed by corona carriers from neighbouring Bangladesh and Myanmar. On Saturday, Mizoram became coronavirus-free with its lone COVID-19 patient being discharged from hospital, officials in the state capital Aizawl said. The credit, Zoramthanga said, goes to the discipline of the people who allowed the state to execute all the provisions suggested by a special task force constituted for the sole purpose to curb the spread of the virus. "Mizoram is a very disciplined state With the help of the church, NGOs and administration, we have so far survived this crisis and are determined to continue to do so in the future," he said in a phone ..

Notwithstanding the ongoing lockdown which has mostly restricted the movement of vehicles to essential commodities only, the 270-km Jammu-Srinagar national highway has become a nightmare for the commuters due to the pathetic condition of the only all-weather road linking Kashmir with the rest of the country. The people living along the strategic highway, especially in the most slide prone Ramban-Banihal sector, are also exasperated over the slow pace of work on the four-laning project being undertaken by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) over the past nine years. "This is not the road but has become a virtual death trap. You can see the drivers of all types of vehicles, both light and heavy, moving out of their lanes to avoid the massive potholes dotting the highway right from Samroli to Qazigund, a distance of almost 120-kms, thus increasing the chances of accidents on the hilly road," Rajinder Singh, a frequent traveller between the twin capitals, told PTI. Singh said ..

Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday came to the help of 13 girl students from the Northeast studying in Delhi University, after they were asked to vacate their hostel, and he made it clear that they can continue to stay in their current accommodation "as long they as wish". The minister for Development of the North Eastern Region (DoNER) intervened after the DU administration asked the students to vacate the North Eastern Students House for Woman by May 31. The provost had asked the students to leave the hostel as soon as possible due to the expiry of mess contract by month-end. While the hostel has a capacity of about 100, currently 13 students are stuck there because of the lockdown. "I have spoken to vice-chancellor of the Delhi University Prof Y C Tyagi regarding the students and resolved the issue. They can continue to stay comfortably in the hostel as long as they wish," Singh said here. The minister said no one should bother students and put them under any kind of ...

Left without jobs and desperate to return home amid the lockdown, 10 migrant labourers have set off on foot from Pune in Maharashtra for their native place hundreds of kilometres away in Uttar Pradesh. The Pune administration has asked the officials concerned to make necessary arrangements for such migrants at hotels and halls available on highways in the district and set up camps for them, in the wake of the death of 16 migrant labourers after being run over by a goods train in Aurangabad. The 10 migrant workers, all natives of Allahabad district in Uttar Pradesh, started walking to their homes from Pune on Saturday evening after losing their jobs and finding to difficult to sustain their livelihood here. "We all were working as construction labourers in Pune. Now we don't have food to survive. Therefore, we have started for our native place in Uttar Pradesh," one of the labourers from the group said. Pune District Collector Naval Kishore Ram has ordered tehsildars and ..

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said 75 per cent of COVID-19 cases in the city are asymptomatic or with mild symptoms. The chief minister said the government has also issued an order for requisition of ambulances of private hospitals, adding that the decision has been taken in the wake of shortage of state-run ambulances. "They (private ambulances) will have to be pressed into service when the government requires their service," Kejriwal said while addressing an online media briefing. The government has made arrangements for treatment of those at their homes with mild COVID-19 symptoms in accordance with the Centre's guidelines. "Out of 6,923 COVID-19 patients, only 1,476 are admitted at hospitals, rest getting treatment at their homes and COVID-19 centres," Kejriwal added.

As more poor migrant children face exploitation in Kerala, some schools are coming up with ways to enrol and retain them. A few schools now have more migrant than local students, Navya P K points out.

The India Together editorial.

Questions raised by the inclusion of World Bank and Asian Development Bank representatives in the committees of the Planning Commission should not be forgotten, even if the move has been rolled back. The India Together editorial.

For Manmohan Singh, the tortuous road to the high office he occupies may be both fortuitous and a handicap. He is not the Prime Minister by right or popular mandate, but simply the man deemed most suited to occupy that role in the midst of the most notable political currents. The India Together editorial.

We continuously embrace the capital-forming ideas of the West, without examination of the sometimes invisible support systems behind them, or notions of citizenship in those countries. As a result, our grand ideas for development often produce grotesque results. The India Together editorial.

Regulation that is working well, as well as others that plainly speak of misgovernance, are both instructive; the road forward lies in separating regulation from the government, and vesting this instead in independent and autonomous bodies created by Parliament. The India Together editorial.

Schools are meant for making better citizens out of our children but in the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh, they are forging and reinforcing caste-bondages instead. Inclusive education seems a far cry in the villages of Dewas, reports Shuriah Niazi.

The tenth Mumbai International Flim Festival has just closed. And obviously, the ilm-makers who protested MIFF 2003 have got their message across that they won't tolerate government interference. Now, the films aren't censored any more. Darryl D'Monte reports.

What's in a name? Apparently a lot in a country like ours, where even today regressive practices like identifying a person's caste by his or her surname or identifying a woman by her husband's name continue unabated, writes Navya P K.

Casteism and the state of our civil society were the major issues discussed at the recently held Difficult Dialogues conclave in Goa. It was organised by the South Asia Centre of the London School of Economics India Summit 2016 and the Television Trust for the Environment. Darryl D’Monte, who participated in one of the panel discussions, reports.

'Protection' is a two-edged weapon. The very fact that this is the principal focus of the Act for women within marriage or out-of-marriage relationships only reinforces the view that women, by and large, are vulnerable to all kinds of violence in their relationships with men, writes Shoma Chatterji.

At a time when the position of women in India and their struggles in society are at the centre of public attention, it seems apt to invoke the legacy of one who was truly the pioneer of women's studies and activism in the country. Shoma A Chatterji pays tribute to Vina Mazumdar.

Manjari Singh reports on the opening of the Lucknow branch of Sheroes Hangout, a café run and managed by acid attack survivors under the guidance of the humanitarian organisation “Stop Acid Attacks”

Despite lack of support from policy-makers, potato farmers continue to deploy indigenously developed production and storage techniques, says Virendar Khatana.

The India Together editorial.

The India Together editorial.

There are four ideas for a Lokpal and a 'Sense of the House' resolution of Parliament itself before the standing committee whic begins work shortly. The battle for Lokpal is far from over, writes Mathew Prasad Idiculla.

Tribals constitute 32 per cent of Chhatisgarh's population. Yet, four years after the state was born, the status of the tribal population does not seem to be improving. At a recent meeting in the state, a network of journalists and activists took stock of the situation. Surekha Sule reports.

Collective Action for Rural Development (CAFORD) encourages families in Andhra's Prakasam district to keep their children in school.

In a society where children are never consulted, parents in an Andhra Pradesh district are looking at their children with new respect. Village children, determined to transform their communities, are writing and producing a Telugu community radio programme, 'Allari Muchchatlu'. Komilla Raote reports.

Krishna Rupanagunta urges a determined beginning to counting the true costs of hardship in labour.

India is unilaterally opening its doors to imports of wheat at a time when several contentious issues remain to be settled in the World Trade Organisation. This deliberate step up will result in serious consequences, and weaken the country's bargaining power, writes Ashok B Sharma.

Instead of bothering itself with luxury pens, a truly egalitarian society would focus its attention on the emancipatory possiblities inherent in wielding a pen, write Venu Madhav Govindu and Deepak Malghan.

Unlimited Girls explores the ideas and experiences of feminism in contemporary urban India. Sameera Khan reviews Paromita Vohra's film.

The doors of homes in Rehmat Nagar, Godhra, are opened by children, and sometimes by women. Men are rarely to be seen around. The world outside the settlement refers to them as "POTA families", a description that encapsulates their precarious present and future. Deepa A has more.

The National Human Rights Commission should investigate Punjab's forced disappearance, says Human Rights Watch

The most flexible information dissemination medium ever invented can still be used for the betterment of all, says Subramaniam Vincent.