If it is in South Asia, it may be even more difficult, because it is located in the tropics, and the temperature often reaches 50 degrees. Today’s India is a typical example. Anyone familiar with the local national conditions should know that the gap between the rich and the poor in this country is very large. There are only a few rich people who can use air conditioners. As for the poor, they can only find ways to escape the heat, such as buying ice cubes and soaking them in the Ganges water, or making simple straw air conditioners.

With the development of time, a kind of heat-reducing delicacy “watermelon pie” has also been born in the local area. This summer-specific fruit is extremely popular in many countries. India is no exception. Local vendors often treat They are cut into pieces and placed on the street for sale. People passing by also like to buy them and eat them, but for foreign tourists, they may be a bit repellent. What is going on?

In fact, anyone who has traveled to this country should know that the environment in India is very dirty, messy and poor. There are a lot of garbage piled on the roadside. Because of religious beliefs, people will not go to the bathroom at home, but will urinate and defecate outdoors. The Shanghui is full of unpleasant smells, and flies are flying everywhere, and these street foods will naturally suffer. In addition, the materials are not very hygienic, and diarrhea will inevitably occur after eating. The same is true for watermelon pie. In addition, because there is no good preservation technology, they are placed on the street carelessly, and dust and flies are allowed to fall on the top. Even if the price is cheaper, it will inevitably make people feel somewhat acceptable. No, it’s not just watermelon, like popsicle sugar cane juice, it also uses Ganges water, so don’t try it lightly for the sake of your stomach. Do you feel that you have gained knowledge when you see this? So what do you want to say about this? Welcome to leave a comment below!

It is worth noting that in recent years, in addition to Vietnam’s support for India, there is another powerful country that hopes to reach further cooperation with India. This country is our neighbor, Japan. Since 2014, the relationship between Japan and India has been warming up. India has decided to build a 505-kilometer high-speed rail line in the country, with a total investment of 17 billion US dollars. China, Europe, and Japan have all participated in the bidding, and then Japan Relying on rich conditions to win this competition. It is reported that Japan has provided nearly 1 trillion yen in loans to India, which is approximately 53.2 billion yuan, with an interest rate of only 0.1% and a repayment period of 50 years. For India, this condition is still very tempting.

In addition, in the political field, Japan also hopes to reach further cooperation with India. In 2019, the two countries held the first “2+2” meeting between their foreign ministers and defense ministers in New Delhi, the capital of India, to discuss issues such as interoperability, joint training, and equipment research and development of the two countries’ military. Just this year, it was reported that the two countries will hold the second “2+2” meeting between the two foreign ministers and defense ministers in Tokyo, the capital of Japan. It can be foreseen that the relationship between the two countries may continue to heat up in the future.

It should be noted that Japan’s overall strength is not inferior to that of European powers. If Japan wants to further support India in the future, India’s international influence may rise again. From the military perspective, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is now equipped with 8 Aegis ships, Type 2 helicopter carriers and other types of ships. Japan has also introduced some F-35B fighters. If necessary, Japan can build more. Support quasi-aircraft carrier formation. In the economic field, although Japan’s economic development rate has repeatedly declined after the “lost 20 years”, Japan is still one of the indispensable economies in the world, and Japan’s scientific research level is also among the top in the world. . In short, for India, Japan is an indispensable and powerful assistant. If Japan can support India in the future, India will also gain a lot. By then, the situation in Asia and the world may also change, and we must be careful. response.

It is worth noting that in recent years, in addition to Vietnam’s support for India, there is another powerful country that hopes to reach further cooperation with India. This country is our neighbor, Japan. Since 2014, the relationship between Japan and India has been warming up. India has decided to build a 505-kilometer high-speed rail line in the country, with a total investment of 17 billion US dollars. China, Europe, and Japan have all participated in the bidding, and then Japan Relying on rich conditions to win this competition. It is reported that Japan has provided nearly 1 trillion yen in loans to India, which is approximately 53.2 billion yuan, with an interest rate of only 0.1% and a repayment period of 50 years. For India, this condition is still very tempting.

In addition, in the political field, Japan also hopes to reach further cooperation with India. In 2019, the two countries held the first “2+2” meeting between their foreign ministers and defense ministers in New Delhi, the capital of India, to discuss issues such as interoperability, joint training, and equipment research and development of the two countries’ military. Just this year, it was reported that the two countries will hold the second “2+2” meeting between the two foreign ministers and defense ministers in Tokyo, the capital of Japan. It can be foreseen that the relationship between the two countries may continue to heat up in the future.

It should be noted that Japan’s overall strength is not inferior to that of European powers. If Japan wants to further support India in the future, India’s international influence may rise again. From the military perspective, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is now equipped with 8 Aegis ships, Type 2 helicopter carriers and other types of ships. Japan has also introduced some F-35B fighters. If necessary, Japan can build more. Support quasi-aircraft carrier formation. In the economic field, although Japan’s economic development rate has repeatedly declined after the “lost 20 years”, Japan is still one of the indispensable economies in the world, and Japan’s scientific research level is also among the top in the world. . In short, for India, Japan is an indispensable and powerful assistant. If Japan can support India in the future, India will also gain a lot. By then, the situation in Asia and the world may also change, and we must be careful. response.

Data map

As an important gathering place for the transfer of the domestic electronics industry, emerging market countries such as Vietnam, India, and Malaysia, due to the recent rebound of the new crown epidemic, have caused some factories to suspend operations in some areas, and there is news that industry orders are returning to the country.

A reporter from the Securities Times·e Company found that the current volume of electronic orders returning to China is limited and restricted by factors such as limited production capacity and different division of labor. The corresponding domestic enterprises have limited capacity; on the other hand, due to the epidemic situation and global core shortages, etc. Under the influence, the security of the supply chain has gradually become a consensus, which further catalyzes the diversion, migration, and fluctuation adjustment of electronic products in the international industrial chain.

(As of June 14, 2021, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Vietnam newly confirmed cases of new crown epidemic data unit per million population data source: Our World in Data)

Reflow of orders but limited production capacity

“There are some overseas orders returning to China, but we are very cautious in taking orders.” As a leading mobile phone contract manufacturer in China, the company has factories in Indonesia and India. Company executives told reporters that these return orders have their own overseas customers as well as other manufacturers’ transfers, but the problem is that the domestic production capacity is now fully loaded.

“Now there is still a shortage of chips such as memory,” the above-mentioned executive told reporters. Due to factors such as the limited capacity of upstream fabs and the stockpile in the industry, the global core shortage problem has not been fundamentally alleviated, which has also affected the ability to receive orders to a certain extent. According to a survey by the market research agency TrendForce, the recent graphics DRAM contract market is still in short supply, and the order fulfillment rate of some small and medium-sized customers is only about 30%. It is expected that this tight supply and demand situation will continue into the third quarter.

In the semiconductor industry, Malaysia and the Philippines have gathered assembly and test production links, including Intel, Texas Instruments, ASE, A-share Tongfu Microelectronics, Huatian Technology, etc., all set up factories there. Recently, these countries have also rebounded from the epidemic. Malaysia has even started Full movement control will be implemented from June 1st.

However, the reporter learned that the semiconductor industry is not restricted by epidemic prevention and control, and local packaging and testing companies and production lines in Malaysia are still running; and the current domestic packaging and testing companies are generally full-loaded and expanded, and their ability to undertake large-scale return orders is limited.

“We can’t accept domestic orders,” the staff of Huatian Technology’s Secretary Office told reporters that the company’s overseas factories are operating normally and have not been affected by the epidemic. In the work deployment in 2021, Huatian Technology will speed up the increase of new production capacity as the top priority to ensure that the company and Malaysia Unisem and other subsidiaries are in place to form production capacity as soon as possible to meet customer needs and effectively expand market share. The company has planned to increase capital of 5.1 billion yuan, which will be used for the expansion of integrated circuit multi-chip packaging projects.

Domestic head electronic component consignment manufacturers also told reporters, “The panic has increased due to the epidemic. According to our understanding, there are not many return orders in the field of electronic components, which is too exaggerated.”

Faced with the impact of the epidemic on production, companies will consider adjusting orders in different regions. Recently, Taiwan’s packaging and testing plant KYEC was exposed. Affected by the epidemic, adjustments in personnel and operation schedules will reduce the company’s output in June by 30%-35%. Industry insiders expect KYEC to transfer some orders to the company’s Suzhou plant. .

As one of Apple’s suppliers, Lens Technology has a factory in Vietnam. Regarding the impact of the epidemic in Vietnam, the company’s executives told reporters that after the local epidemic, Lens Technology communicated with customers on re-adjusting production arrangements and reached an agreement. Related products have been arranged in Hunan related parks, and the related parks have sufficient production capacity. It is not expected to have a negative impact on customer product delivery.

In addition, Chaoyang Technology is engaged in earphones and electro-acoustic product accessories. The company said in response to investors’ questions that the impact of the Vietnam epidemic on the company is relatively limited. According to reports, Chaoyang Technology has set up two wholly-owned subsidiaries in Vietnam. The upgrade of the epidemic prevention and control measures in Vietnam involves the subsidiary Viet Nam Lusheng belonging to the Beijiang area. Currently, it is actively cooperating with the local government’s epidemic prevention requirements and strictly implementing the epidemic prevention policy; the company It has been coordinating the operations of the two subsidiaries in Vietnam, and has adjusted part of the production capacity and production tasks to another Vietnam Chaoyang Industrial Co., Ltd.

Zhilai Technology, which is engaged in automatic storage cabinets, said that the Vietnam epidemic has had a certain impact on the efficiency of the procurement of some materials and the export of products in the Vietnamese factory, and has not had a significant impact on the production and operation of the Vietnamese factory. The expansion of the new production capacity of the factory is still progressing in an orderly manner, and it is expected to start production by mid-year. The company’s main production base is located in Xianning, Hubei. If the Vietnam epidemic is out of control and the factory cannot produce normally, the Hubei factory will take over the production tasks of the Vietnam factory and will not affect the production and delivery of orders.

The epidemic has not stopped industrial migration

“As far as we know from the industry chain, the current return of electronic orders is mainly small home appliances and handheld products, which has little impact on customer orders such as Apple and Samsung.” Dong Shimin, director of the Yuanchuan Research Institute, told reporters.

In fact, under the background of Sino-US trade frictions and rising labor costs in the mainland, listed electronics companies have continued to set up factories in Vietnam, India and other places in recent years, even during the epidemic. Among them, Vietnam is the hottest.

According to statistics on foreign investment in Vietnam from the Ministry of Planning and Investment of Vietnam, in the first four months of this year, Vietnam’s attractiveness for foreign direct investment is still relatively optimistic. Funds increased by 24.7% year-on-year; China’s investment in Vietnam has ranked fourth in the first three months of this year, second only to Singapore, Japan, and South Korea. According to Vietnamese statistics, in 2020, China is the third largest source of investment in Vietnam, with a total registered investment of US$2.46 billion, accounting for approximately 8.6% of Vietnam’s total foreign direct investment in the whole year.

Vietnam has also introduced a number of policies to attract foreign investment, becoming an investment destination of “China+1” under the background of Sino-US trade frictions. According to the reporter’s understanding, Vietnam has passed the “Investment Law” (Amendment), “Enterprise Law” (Amendment), “Public Private Partnership (PPP) Investment Law” and other laws on investment and operation, simplifying investment procedures and making it more transparent. And diversify investment forms, and even optimize supplementary investment preferential mechanisms. In addition, Vietnam is a member of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and the Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), which facilitates foreign investment. condition.

At the same time, Vietnam also gives preferential taxation. According to the disclosure of Lens Technology, the corporate income tax rate of the Vietnamese subsidiary is 20%. Starting from the year of profitability, it will be exempted for the first 2 years and reduced by half for the next 4 years.

In response to the recent rebound of the epidemic, the Vietnamese government requested that priority be given to key industrial production provinces in northern regions such as Beijiang and Beining. The Vietnamese government has instructed various departments and agencies to give priority to the above-mentioned two provinces to provide the new crown vaccine for vaccinating workers in industrial parks to ensure uninterrupted production and operation. In addition, the government has also introduced financial measures such as loan-free interest rates for customers affected by the epidemic.

From the data point of view, the enthusiasm of A-share listed companies to invest in Vietnam is high, and the electronics industry in particular surpasses other Southeast Asian countries. In 2020, the new crown epidemic is raging around the world, but the number of listed companies raising investment in Vietnam projects has increased significantly. Wind statistics show that since 2020, listed companies such as Yutong Technology, Intellectual Power, and USI have invested in Vietnam’s packaging expansion, precision technology and wearable equipment through convertible bonds, additional issuances, and other projects. In addition, they have jointly created lawns and Huali. The initial IPO fundraising of listed companies such as the Group and Aimer shares also involved local projects in Vietnam, and the total amount of relevant fundraising exceeded 3.4 billion yuan.

Investors’ attention to the direction of the industry’s shift has also continued to increase. According to the statistics of Tianyan Check, the number of survey minutes containing the keyword “Vietnam” began to increase in 2018, and the number of disclosures reached 58. Subsequent to this, the number has basically doubled in 2019 and 2020, reaching 204 by 2020, and it has been close to 100 since this year. seal.

“From the historical background of industrial transfer in Southeast Asia, as early as the 1990s, Japan had already begun to transfer to Southeast Asia and other countries.” Dong Shimin told reporters that from a time point of view, after China joined the WTO, Southeast Asia is also trying to attract industries to the local area. However, at that time, the advantages of labor cost replacement were not obvious, and corporate management experience was insufficient, and no obvious results were achieved in the end.

Dong Shimin introduced that by about 2012, Samsung began to try out the migration of some domestic industries with relatively low technical requirements. Apple suppliers such as Goertek and Luxshare Precision are also transferring, and with the continuous improvement of management level, By training local employees, increase the success rate of industrial transfer.

The executives of Lens Technology introduced to reporters that in recent years, they have continuously improved the layout and development of the industrial chain. They have set up 9 R&D and production bases in China and Vietnam, which can better respond to changes in the external environment, meet the diverse needs of customers, and optimize products. Delivery location and supply capacity to diversify supply chain risks. At present, each of the company’s production parks is self-built and owned by the company, with complete ownership, and the level of automated and intelligent production is stable and leading in the industry.

(Source: CICC)

Apple suppliers intensively go to Vietnam

Tracing the driving force behind the changes in the industry, following customers and the market has become the most critical factor in the migration of the electronics industry, and will even set up factories in different countries according to different customer needs. Sunny Optical executives also introduced earlier that the company’s global layout is customer-centric and follow customers for localized production. For example, the establishment of factories in India is to facilitate cooperation with OPPO, vivo and other customers, and the production in Vietnam is to cooperate with Samsung.

As the vane of the consumer electronics industry, Apple has built a diversified manufacturing system as the company’s long-term strategy. Signs of industrial relocation can also be seen in its latest fiscal year 2020 supplier list: On the one hand, there are 51 suppliers in mainland China (including Hong Kong, China), surpassing the number of suppliers in Taiwan, China for the first time in history; on the other hand, The number of Apple suppliers in Vietnam has increased from 14 in fiscal year 2018 to 21, which is even twice the number of Indian manufacturers in the same period.

If you further compare the details of the changes in the number of manufacturers in the 2018 and 2020 fiscal years, you can find that Apple suppliers in mainland China have become the main increase in setting up factories in Vietnam. Among them, after Goertek and Yutong Technology, Luxshare Precision and Lens Technology A-share listed companies such as A-shares, Lingyizhizao, and Meiyingsen have set up factories in Vietnam, replacing some of the Japanese and Korean suppliers that had previously set up factories there.

Mei Yingsen’s board secretary, Liu Huifeng, also told reporters that the main purpose of going to Vietnam to set up factories is to follow customers and make matching packaging. “It would be too expensive to ship the packaging from China, and we will lose the customer if we don’t go.” As for whether it will continue to increase overseas production capacity in the future, Mei Yingsen said that it is very likely.

Yutong Technology, a counterpart of Meiyingsen and a supplier of Apple, established its first production base in Vietnam as early as 2011, and has now expanded from Vietnam to India, Indonesia and Thailand and established 6 production bases. In April 2019, it used its own (self-raised) funds to purchase the original leased plant and land use rights, at a cost of approximately 60.34 million yuan; in April last year, the company also raised 1.4 billion yuan through the issuance of convertible bonds, including fundraising Invested in Vietnam and Indonesia to expand the production line of electronic product packaging boxes.

On the whole, compared with the domestic Apple industry chain, Southeast Asia’s production capacity is relatively small, and it undertakes the transfer of relatively peripheral and low-end industries, but it is already on the track of gradual growth. In the introduction to investors, the executives of Goertek pointed out that the company’s manufacturing is centered in Weifang and Vietnam is supplemented; the company has been in Vietnam since 2013 and now has a considerable scale. From the perspective of revenue share, last year, Goertek’s overseas revenue contribution reached 50.7 billion yuan, and its share increased to about 88% year-on-year.

According to industry speculation, the production capacity of Apple headsets that Luxshare Precision is engaged in in Vietnam has already exceeded 10% and will gradually increase. In addition, in view of the complexity of the mobile phone industry chain, often mainland manufacturers will be responsible for the production of precision parts, and then shipped to Vietnam and other places to complete the final relatively easy assembly link, and then export overseas.

Compared with Vietnam, India is another electronics industry undertaking. Although the number of Apple suppliers is not as high as that of Vietnam, the majority of Taiwan-based assembly plants are mostly.

Representatives of ODM manufacturers who set up factories in India told reporters that in terms of labor costs, Vietnam is twice as expensive as India. The local labor wage in Vietnam is equivalent to RMB 4,000/month, and Indian workers are about 2,000 yuan/month; however, the company did not choose Vietnam. , But India, the main reason is that in addition to satisfying customers’ global delivery needs, India is also an important mobile phone consumer market, and enjoys preferential tariffs.

From a tariff point of view, India’s local production and assembly also have advantages. The aforementioned manufacturer introduced to reporters that according to past data, the tariff cost of local production in India is about 18% less than that of production in China for the same export to Europe and the United States.

“India has ample local labor, which is cheaper than Vietnam’s labor cost. It is suitable for large-scale assembly, packaging and other relatively low-tech links. Many precision parts are shipped from China to India for assembly.”

According to the IDC report, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, the Indian smartphone market shrank by 2% in 2020, with a total sales volume of about 150 million units. Among the top five, there are four Chinese brands, namely Xiaomi, Vivo, realme and OPPO. Chinese brand Samsung Electronics ranked second.

The epidemic is also expected to affect India’s local mobile phone production this year. TrendForce further pointed out that the current top five mobile phone brands in the world, Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo, all have production lines in India or are produced through OEM factories. The output, and the proportion is increasing year by year, the current output Mainly to supply local demand. Based on the local production situation at this stage, it is estimated that the production of 12 million mobile phones in the second quarter to the third quarter of this year will be affected. Affected by the epidemic, India’s annual production volume may decline by 7.5%.

Ensuring the security of the supply chain has become a new consideration for migration

In addition to attracting foreign investment, India is actively promoting its own industrial substitution, using the mobile phone industry as a pilot, and it has begun to show results.

Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist of Insurance Bank Investment, emphasized that India is a country that cannot be ignored. “Although India’s current industrial chain system is not perfect, the current Moody’s government is ambitious and has stronger executive power than before. The PLI (Production Linked Incentive) project will do better.”

According to reports, in April 2020, the Indian government launched a production-linked incentive strategy to promote import substitution in the mobile phone industry. This strategy encourages localized production of mobile phone manufacturers and subsidizes 4-6% of the company’s revenue over a five-year period. At present, about 16 manufacturers have joined the funding program, including Hon Hai Foxconn and Samsung. According to statistics, after the exit of the strategy, participating manufacturers have invested 13 billion rupees and produced more than 20,000 jobs.

The Indian government is also promoting import substitution projects in more fields such as auto parts, home appliances, medicine, solar energy, and communications. Indian officials estimate that the plan will increase output by US$520 billion in the next five years.

Zhang Zhiwei said that “India does not need to be China”. From a macro perspective, India’s population base is large enough, and India will be one of the few countries that can maintain an economic growth rate of 8% in the next 20 years.

In addition to traditional geopolitical factors, under the disturbance of core shortages and epidemics, ensuring the security of the supply chain has gradually become a new driver of promoting the transfer of the electronics industry.

A few days ago, the U.S. Senate passed the “U.S. Innovation and Competition Act,” authorizing approximately US$190 billion to strengthen US technology and research, and separately approved spending of US$54 billion to increase US production and production of semiconductors, microchips, and telecommunications equipment. the study. US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo has said that the funds may be used to build 7 to 10 semiconductor factories in the United States.

In addition to the United States, the European Union and South Korea have also taken measures to strengthen supply chain security, while Southeast Asia and other countries are preparing for corresponding industries. But this is not a cost-compliant plan.

According to a joint study by BCG and SIA, if a fully self-sufficient localized supply chain is established everywhere, at least US$1 trillion in R&D and capital support will be required, and the overall price of semiconductors will rise by 35%-65%, ultimately increasing consumption The cost of electronic equipment

Dong Shimin told reporters that issues such as the epidemic and the lack of cores have made countries aware of supply chain security issues. Although not building a supply chain will increase costs, it may still become a long-term trend; on the other hand, the supply chain is completely shifted from China. Southeast Asia and other places may also have some volatility adjustments due to the epidemic situation and the steady performance of the mainland’s supply chain. For example, the previous plan to transfer all out, the transfer may be reduced after this round of the epidemic.

In addition, the goal of carbon neutrality may also further trigger the trend of industry transfer to developing countries. Zhang Zhiwei pointed out that the United States and China will certainly advance the carbon neutrality target, but countries like Vietnam are objectively not willing to set too high a carbon neutrality target. In the future, the transfer of high-energy, low-end industries will be a major trend.

Regarding the concerns about the hollowing out of the domestic industry due to the transfer of industries to Southeast Asia and other places, representatives of international OEM manufacturers told reporters, “There is no need to worry about this problem.” There is a larger domestic market and a more complete supply chain, and the company is constantly strengthening. R & D strength to improve the level of automation. “After all, it is mainly low-end migration to Southeast Asia and even Brazil.”

Observation: Emerging market countries ignited the movement of new energy vehicles

Emerging market countries in Southeast Asia and other places are no longer satisfied with their role as destinations for foreign-funded industries, and have set the banner of supporting local industries and independent innovation; and new energy vehicles have almost become the same choice.

For a long time, countries such as Vietnam and India have been considered to receive dividends from Sino-US trade frictions. With cheap labor costs, foreign investment conditions, tariff differences and other conditions, they have accepted a large number of low-end mobile phone orders from international customers such as Apple and Samsung. However, after all, the economic structure that relies on foreign investment has natural drawbacks. In addition, domestic labor costs are no longer cheap, and the new crown epidemic has disrupted the pace of industrial transfer to a certain extent. Promoting domestic industrial upgrading has become an important issue considered by emerging market countries.

New energy vehicles are rare innovation carriers that can gather upstream and downstream industries extensively, and it is not difficult to understand that they have been selected as an important option for development. From the perspective of the path, emerging market countries will take advantage of domestic manufacturing, start with the introduction of foreign brands, and implement localized production. They will also join the supply chain of China’s new energy automobile industry to incubate their own car-making forces.

According to the news, Tesla has begun to recruit sales and marketing directors and human resources directors in India; this will be Tesla’s latest response to the Indian production-linked incentive plan (PLI). Under the PLI plan, the Indian government of Moody’s encourages international manufacturing giants to produce locally in India and export them all over the world. In addition, India has approved a plan worth 181 billion rupees (2.5 billion US dollars) to increase the battery storage capacity to 50GWh.

In addition, as a major automobile producer in Southeast Asia, Thailand has been actively developing new energy vehicles, aiming to become an electric vehicle manufacturing export center in Southeast Asia, and has formulated a strategic plan for the development of new energy vehicles, with the goal of basically replacing fuel vehicles with electric vehicles after 2036. .

In May of this year, Hon Hai Precision signed a memorandum of cooperation with Thai National Petroleum Corporation to establish an open platform for the electric vehicle industry in Thailand to produce electric vehicles and provide key To launch new models. Prior to 2018, BYD delivered 101 E6 new energy electric vehicles to Thailand, and local Thai companies also signed an agreement with BYD to plan to introduce another 1,000 E6 electric vehicles in the next few years.

Indonesia, on the other hand, is making use of its advantages in resource mines to develop new energy vehicles. It is understood that Indonesia has the necessary minerals for new energy vehicle batteries such as nickel ore, cobalt, and copper, and plans to become a global production center for electric vehicle power batteries. The Indonesian government aims to export 200,000 electric vehicles by 2025, or allow local brand electric vehicle exports to account for 20% of total motor vehicle exports.

In December 2020, the new energy automobile battery manufacturing giant Ningde Times has signed a contract with the Indonesian government to invest 5 billion US dollars to build a lithium battery plant. The project is scheduled to be put into operation in 2024. This will be the second time of the Ningde Times after the plant in Thuringia, Germany. Overseas factories.

Vietnam has also begun to develop new energy vehicles, and the pace is faster. In the past two years, as the government has introduced support policies for the development of electric vehicles, the sales volume of electric vehicles has increased at an annual growth rate of 500,000 to 600,000, and local enterprises have been actively cultivated.

Vinfast is an automobile subsidiary of Vingroup, Vietnam’s largest comprehensive enterprise group, and the first automobile manufacturer in Vietnam. It has become the fifth largest automobile brand in Vietnam last year and plans to go public in the United States. The latest valuation exceeds US$50 billion, which is close to Wei Come by car.

(Sales of VinFast and other auto companies in Vietnam in 2020)

In March of this year, the Taiwanese solid-state battery manufacturer Huineng Technology and VinFast recently announced that they have signed a memorandum of cooperation (MOU) to establish a joint venture company in Vietnam to increase the commercialization of local solid-state batteries; in addition, Hon Hai also reported a plan to acquire VinFast electric car production line news, and VinFast hopes to retain the electric car block business.

A-share listed companies have also begun to share in Vietnam’s electric vehicle projects. According to Feilong’s introduction to the media, the company has been appointed by VinFast for the electronic water pump and electronic three-way valve project of three pure electric vehicles. It is expected that the first vehicle will be mass-produced in October 2021; the Vinfast pure electric vehicle project and The off-road vehicle project will bring more than 100 million yuan in sales contribution to the company.

Bob has an experience in the United States. He said that there are no fewer phone scams in the United States than in China. When he was in the United States, he encountered several scam calls.

For example, one day, Bob received a phone call, and he was speaking in curry-scented English, asking if Bob’s computer would occasionally freeze.

At that time, the computer Xiaobai’s computer must have this kind of problem more or less after being used for a long time.

Bob is not a computer novice, and there is nothing wrong with the computer, but he realizes that something is wrong, and wants to see what kind of show operation this buddy wants to play, so he replied “yes” out of conscience.

The other side was very happy to hear this answer, and said, “Don’t wolli, I vill help U!” (Indian accent version, don’t worry, I will help you!)

Then he started to instruct Bob to go to a website to download a certain software. Blahblah said a lot, and finally asked “You understand?”. For this kind of low-level phishing software scam, Bob is naturally impossible to be fooled. He is very disappointed with the scams of the Indian buddies. So he decided to end the topic, and said to the other person “I am studying computer science, I can solve it by myself”, so angry that the other person could not speak, and hung up the phone. I praised Bob’s anti-fraud awareness. He shook his head humbly and said, mainly because the guy’s Indian accent made him vigilant. After all, the white people didn’t bother to do this. Black people generally can’t do this. . . In fact, Bob’s experience can reflect to a certain extent how rampant phone fraud cases are in the United States. According to a survey conducted by an app called Truecaller, phone fraud in the United States has become more and more serious in recent years. In 2020 alone, 56 million Americans were deceived, with a total loss of US$19.7 billion. What is the concept of 56 million people? They account for about 22% of the entire population of the United States, and these are the ones who have been defrauded of money. According to the survey, 30% of people in the U.S. have been scammed by phone scams, and 17% of them have been “scammed several times” . . . Everyone knows that bad reviewers are professionally trained. They usually don’t laugh when they comment on such serious things, unless they can’t help it. So when I saw this data, everyone was stupid. This American’s heart is too big, right? Is it really a per capita wealth boy? According to a data reported by the “New York Times”, phone fraud from India is the main force. The entire Indian phone scam industry, The annual “output value” is as high as 28 billion U.S. dollars, and about 1.2 million people are engaged in phone fraud. At the end of 2020, the police took down a call center in New Delhi, India. These 50 people alone defrauded more than 14 million U.S. dollars in the United States. On the official website of the U.S. Department of Justice, you can also read about India phoneThere are people in India working on fraud cases as early as 2013, and it has a long history. So the question is, why is it in India? phoneCan fraud develop into such a huge industry? For this matter, the major Western companies are still to be blamed. As we all know, India is a country with a large population, and it is also a populous country with English as one of its official languages. Large companies such as Google and Microsoft have money, but the cost of recruiting people as customer service in their own country is too high, so they set their sights on India, which is not so rich but has a lot of people. Many large companies have set up manual customer service call centers in India, and adopted the method of “training on duty” to correct their accents and grammatical habits. This kind of high-end foreign company outsourcing work is a good way out for many poor Indians. After all, it has a very low threshold. They are all Indians. Who doesn’t speak a few English anymore? As a result, a large number of people have received induction training, and manual customer service has even become a dream job for many people. Picture source: @正解局▼ But training belongs to training. After all, there are only a few positions. Those who have received training but can’t go to work think of the crooked way of phone fraud, and this way of making money is much faster than being a customer service. In addition, India has a large population and fierce competition for employment. Every year, educational institutions train a large number of software engineers, but only 20% of them can find decent jobs. Some of the remaining people provide “technical support” for phone fraud, such as using crawler software to obtain personal information of victims, and so on. In addition to labor and technology, India phoneScams are the same as phone scams in Southeast Asia. They use different scams based on the characteristics of the American population. For example, a refund scam specifically for the elderly tells them that there is a refund available, but there is a problem with the bank transfer system. Then he proposed that he needed to remotely connect and manipulate the elderly’s computer to log in to the online bank account and pretend to transfer money to the elderly. In fact, the displayed amount was changed by modifying the front-end code of the web page. Then told the old man that they accidentally transferred too much money and needed the old man to transfer the money back to carry out a wave of empty glove white wolf. For those old people who don’t understand the code, it’s easy to believe them and get cheated of money. There is a computer technical support scam (Bob has encountered that kind),Use phishing websites to induce others to download Trojan horse programs and steal bank account passwords. Or you may use hackers to hack into the victim’s computer to blackmail, and wait for your pornographic photos to be seen on the entire network without paying. Targeting young people, they will use other scams, such as the threat of drug dealing. Since a large number of young people in the United States have been exposed to drugs such as marijuana, these scammers will pretend to be employees of the US Drug Enforcement Administration and claim to have found his bank account on the side of the drug cartel. At the same time, the victim will be told his real address, making the victim panic ▼ Then tell the victim to wait for someone to come and go to jail, unless you pay the money to get acquitted. Faced with such a serious accusation, these young people naturally couldn’t grasp it, and paid on the spot before thinking about it. Some of these scams are even aimed at immigrants who have just arrived in the United States. Scammers will call these new immigrants to pretend that they are from the tax bureau, saying that they are tax evasion and tax evasion. The penalties for tax evasion in the United States are very serious. The key is that there are many miscellaneous taxes. Many newcomers do not know whether they have missed the payment, so they are deceived by scammers. Recently, due to the epidemic, there were not enough hospital beds and oxygen inhalers in the United States. India also invented a scam to sell oxygen cylinders. The money was paid before the goods. The victims disappeared as soon as the money was transferred, deceiving many people. The entire Twitter is that people are reporting scams related to the epidemic. This is a fire extinguisher changed to an oxygen tank ▼ In fact, these scams have flaws. For example, some scammers even ask victims to pay “fines” through Apple Google App Store gift cards, Bitcoin, etc., which is very problematic at first glance. However, the key to all scams is to fascinate the “authorities.” From the perspective of God, we naturally think that such scams are not good, but there is no way to be sure that we will not be fooled in the position of the victim. For example, a colleague in our editorial department was cheated of 40,000 yuan after a hangover one day. Since India phoneScams are so prevalent in the United States, why don’t the U.S. officials carry out a wave of cleanup? Because transnational law enforcement is quite difficult. The nature of this matter is that the Indians are defrauding people, and the Indian side needs to cooperate in arresting people, the deceived are Americans, and the victims in the United States need to file a lawsuit. When those Indians are caught, the local courts will need evidence to sentence them, such as the transfer records of victims in the United States, and it cannot be a casual victim. It must be a victim of scams by those caught. This directly led to the difficulty of the police on both sides wanting to do things, and the fact that they didn’t pay enough attention to them, all of them were slowing down. Officials did not act, but some civil forces in the United States launched a resistance. One of the most famous is Jim Browning, the owner of the tubing UP. He is a highly skilled hacker who has uploaded a lot of content related to overseas scams he discovered on YouTube since seven years ago. In recent years, due to the increasing number of phone scams in India, he also focused his attention on this. He once hacked into the computer camera of an Indian fraud call center and recorded the entire process of the fraudster’s crimes. According to the IP address of this computer, he also located the location of this studio, which is located in Kolkata, India, and even found the specific building. In addition, he is also very phoneThe scammer conducted a wave of “returning to the other side” and made a video, pretending to be deceived, and allowing the scammer to connect with him remotely. Then show the scammer the real identity photos of the scammer he collected early, such as his working place. Ask the scammer if he knows this computer, and is it familiar or not? ▼ And the tools he usually uses. He also asked some specific information about the photos, such as where he took these photos, and found that the scammer was still lying, saying that he took the photos on the company computer. Jim: You are taking pictures of your laptop screen. Liar: Ah this. . . %^&$, yes, yes. (Frustrated)▼ Jim ruthlessly debunked the fact that he took the photo in his own home and told him that the photo was positioned, which meant that the home address of the scammer had been exposed. The liar immediately panicked, turned off the photo on the spot, and cut off the call. Jim: You are scamming in your own home, and you have been lying just now. Liar: Sir, I don’t have one. . . ▼ I can only say that this video of Jim is really refreshing after watching, and the old Murong has recovered! Jim has a lot of Indian scammers realInformation, even the ID cards of many people are available. He sometimes cooperates with other tubing UP (Such as Scammer Payback), To implement his own justice in a “Robin Hood” way. For example, they pretend to be deceived, make a remote connection with the liar, and then use the goose on the screen to pick up the liar’s ID card bit by bit in front of the liar. Scammer Payback will also broadcast live “fishing” scammers, playing tricks on scammers, and it makes people feel very happy. UP owners who focus on anti-fraud, such as Jim Browning and Scammer Payback, have many fans on YouTube, and each video has at least several million views. People who have seen these videos are naturally lucky, and they have a high probability of avoiding phone fraud. But more people don’t know this, and they are still being fooled by phone scams. With the development of the Internet, more and more gray industries are showing a “regional” distribution characteristic, such as the telephone fraud industry in Southeast Asia and India. Criminals use the convenience of the Internet to commit crimes across borders to avoid risks and cheat on a global scale. Isn’t that the law should also keep pace with the times and introduce a related international regulation to crack down on these related scams? Picture, data source: Youtube, Scammer Payback Youtube, Jim Browning Owner and Operator of India-Based Call Centers Sentenced to Prison for Scamming US Victims out of Millions of Dollars 26 Fake Indian Tech Support Call Centers Raided By Police; Arrests Made Indian police cracked huge telecom fraud and arrested 750 people Every year tens of billions of Americans are defrauded. How do Indians do it? TRUECALLER’S TIPS TO AVOID THE NEW COVID SCAMS IN INDIA TRUECALLER INSIGHTS 2020 US SPAM & SCAM REPORT

Youtube, Scammer Payback

Youtube, Jim Browning

Owner and Operator of India-Based Call Centers Sentenced to Prison for Scamming US Victims out of Millions of Dollars

26 Fake Indian Tech Support Call Centers Raided By Police; Arrests Made

Indian police cracked huge telecom fraud and arrested 750 people

Every year tens of billions of Americans are defrauded. How do Indians do it?

TRUECALLER’S TIPS TO AVOID THE NEW COVID SCAMS IN INDIA

TRUECALLER INSIGHTS 2020 US SPAM & SCAM REPORT

People wear masks to prevent COVID-19 infection at a market in Srinagar, India, June 14, 2021. Photo: THX/VNA The most severely affected country is still the US with 615,247 deaths out of a total of 34,335,515 infections. Next is India with 377,061 deaths out of 29,617,058 cases. Brazil ranks third with 488,404 deaths out of 17,454,861 patients. As a percentage of population, Peru has the highest mortality rate, with 573 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. Next is Hungary with 310 people and Bosnia-Herzegovina with 289 people/100,000 people. By region, Latin America and the Caribbean are currently the epicenter of the world’s epidemic, with more than 1.2 million deaths in over 35.1 million infections. Next is Europe, with over 53.6 million people infected with COVID-19, including over 1.15 million deaths. North America has over 625,800 deaths in over 34.8 million infections. Asia recorded over 540,400 deaths in over 38.4 million infections. The Middle East has over 146,400 deaths, Africa has recorded over 134,900 deaths, while the number of deaths in Oceania is over 1,100. On June 15, Thailand recorded 3,000 new infections, including 2,995 domestic infections. On the same day, the country had another 19 deaths. Prime Minister Prayut Chan o-cha said the government has ordered 100 million doses of vaccine and aims to vaccinate 50 million people, or 70 percent of the population, this year and is buying more to expand immunization to 80 – 90% of the population next year. On the same day, the Lao Ministry of Health said that the country recorded 15 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases nationwide to 2,025. Of the 15 new cases, 6 were community infections in the capital Vientiane and 9 imported cases were immediately isolated. According to the Lao Ministry of Health, the failure of a part of the people to strictly comply with epidemic prevention regulations is the cause of new cases in the community. To date, more than 1 million Lao people have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. A vaccination site against COVID-19 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Photo: AFP/VNA In the past 24 hours, Cambodia recorded an additional 495 cases of COVID-19 and 13 deaths from this disease. Although the epidemic situation in Cambodia is still complicated, the Phnom Penh capital government still decided to allow the resumption of all business and trading activities at the state-managed markets in the city. The Cambodian Ministry of Health said that in the next few days, the number of people vaccinated against COVID-19 will reach 3 million and the country is aiming for 10 million people to achieve herd immunity. According to the ministry’s report, so far 2,939,543 people in Cambodia have been vaccinated, or 29.4% of the total 10 million adults expected to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The number of new COVID-19 cases in Malaysia has been on a downward trend in recent days, after hitting record highs in May. Malaysian Health Ministry data released on June 15 confirmed an additional 5,419 cases. COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 667,876, including 3,968 deaths. The Malaysian government announced on June 15 that it had granted emergency use authorization for one-shot COVID-19 vaccines developed by CanSino Biologics (China) and Johnson & Johnson (USA). Malaysia is speeding up its vaccination program in tandem with strict lockdown measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. As of June 14, this Southeast Asian country has administered at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine to 3.28 million people, or 10% of the population. Vaccination against COVID-19 in Seoul, South Korea. Photo: AFP/VNA South Korea on June 15 recorded 374 new infections, bringing the total number of cases nationwide to 148,647. The country is planning to launch a trial of a new social distancing mechanism within three weeks, starting from the beginning of next month, while trying to prevent a spike in daily new infections. Accordingly, South Korea will lift the current ban on gatherings of 5 or more people and increase it to 8 people. Restaurants and cafes can stay open until midnight in the capital Seoul and surrounding areas, 2 hours later than the current curfew from 10pm. Currently, the capital Seoul and the surrounding area, along with the city of Daegu as well as the resort island of Jeju, are applying social distancing level 2 out of a 5-level scale, while the remaining areas are at level 2. 1.5. Mass gatherings of 5 or more people are prohibited. To date, about 13 million South Koreans, or 25% of the population, have received the first dose of the vaccine. Meanwhile, the Japanese Government has approved a new policy on increasing support for foreigners residing in Japan who have difficulties and obstacles in vaccination against COVID-19. Accordingly, the country will step up support and guide foreigners who are not familiar with the vaccination registration process at their places of residence, as well as have difficulties in contacting the vaccination department. In addition, the government will also promote the implementation of a multilingual portal on COVID-19 prevention measures. The Hong Kong government (China) has announced that it will relax the strict restrictive measures imposed since July last year for ships and boats docked at this Asian shipping hub. According to the Hong Kong maritime authority, from June 15, the crew of ships and boats that dock in this city for fuel or food will be exempt from restrictive measures depending on the situation. A COVID-19 test site in Hong Kong, China. Photo: AFP/VNA Israel has officially lifted the mandatory mask wearing in public places since June 15, after more than a year of implementation. Accordingly, buildings, offices, schools, hotels… will not require employees or visitors to wear masks when in this enclosed space. However, wearing a mask is still applied in a few special cases, for example, people who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 who visit patient care facilities are at high risk of death if infected. infected, people on the way to quarantine or passengers on the plane. Earlier, on April 18, the Israeli Government also lifted the mandatory mask wearing rule outdoors and from June 1 lifted all social distancing measures after more than a year of application. Thanks to an effective vaccination campaign, the number of COVID-19 patients and the infection rate in Israel have dropped to a very low level. Also on June 15, the Indian Ministry of Health announced that it had recorded an additional 60,471 cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, marking the eighth consecutive day that the number of new cases across India was below the threshold of 100,000 cases. Currently, the total number of COVID-19 cases in this South Asian country has reached 29,570,881 cases. Also in the past 24 hours, with an additional 2,726 deaths, the total number of deaths from COVID-19 in India has increased to 377,031 cases. In the capital New Delhi, after recording a sharp decrease in the number of new cases and deaths from COVID-19 in the last 2 weeks, restaurants and shops were allowed to reopen from June 14 with the evening hours. maximum 50% capacity. However, schools, educational facilities, swimming pools, gyms and public places remain closed. In Europe, the final stage of Britain’s COVID-19 lockdown lifting will be postponed to July 19 instead of June 21 as originally planned. The decision was taken as the UK recorded an increasing number of new cases of COVID-19 due to the emergence of the contagious Delta variant first detected in India. Scientists advising the British Government warn that the number of people needing hospital treatment due to COVID-19 will increase sharply again if the final phase of the blockade easing schedule takes place on June 21. according to the plan. According to the restrictions imposed to prevent COVID-19 in the UK, outdoor events are limited to a maximum of 30 people, indoor events up to 6 people. However, 15 pilot events are on track to ease the lockdown as planned, including upcoming EURO 2020 matches and art and music performances. Those attending these events must present a certificate of vaccination or test negative for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Some regions in Russia have tightened restrictive measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, while focusing on strengthening the response capacity of hospitals in the event of an increase in hospital admissions after the outbreak. as the number of new infections skyrocketed. On June 15, Russia added 14,185 new infections, of which 6,805 were in Moscow, bringing the total number of cases across the country to 5,236,593. In the past 24 hours, Russia also recorded an additional 379 deaths from COVID-19, bringing the total number of deaths to 127,780.

The pandemic “tsunami” of the past months hit and nearly collapsed India’s public health system on a large scale, in the period from mid-April to early June. In this context, thanks to careful preparation and sound resource investment strategy, southern Indian states like Tamil Nadu suffered less severe damage than other regions, according to the report. Financial Times . Prepare early for the bad scenario Jacob John, a doctor at a medical school in the city of Vellore, said the number of patients treated at the hospital where he worked at one time reached “uncontrollable thresholds”. At that time, the hospital’s 900 beds were filled, causing the facility to refuse to accept more patients and nearly drain its reserve of breathing air for treatment. But when a catastrophic second wave of disease hit Tamil Nadu and other southern states, places like Vellore were able to withstand the worst Covid-19 tragedy. The ability of these states to fight the epidemic is largely due to the planned and effective investment in the public health care system in the southern states. A woman has her blood pressure checked before getting a Covid-19 vaccine in Tamil Nadu, India. Photo: PTI. Experts say that in many other parts of India, the lack of investment and reconstruction for the public health system was exposed when the Covid-19 tsunami swept through. Tamil Nadu is recording about 22,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 500 deaths every day. Under that pressure, Tamil Nadu officials still managed to push back the wave of the epidemic. “The current situation is very difficult. We do not have enough intensive care beds and are forced to refuse to accept many patients,” said Dr. John. “I’m not saying we’re perfect, but when the wave is over, I’m sure the investments in the public health system will save lives.” Before the second Covid-19 storm made landfall, healthcare systems in many other parts of the country, including the capital New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, were nearly completely collapsed. whole. Many patients die from lack of oxygen while the crematorium is overloaded, causing some families to choose to let their bodies float in the river. New Delhi fell before the pandemic, the number of deaths increased sharply, overloading the crematoriums. Photo: Reuters. Although the southern states of India have also “tasteed” the Covid-19 tragedy, experts say that these localities are resilient to cope with the recent outbreak of the disease. “Thanks to a well-developed healthcare infrastructure, the situation in the southern states is not as shocking as in many other places,” said Ratan Jalan, founder of Medium Healthcare Consulting. India’s southern states account for about 250 million of the country’s nearly 1.4 billion population. Kerala and Tamil Nadu are leaders in healthcare, with indicators such as infant mortality rates consistently low. Except for the state of Karnataka, other parts of South India have abundant medical supplies and many medical colleges. The Sustainable Development Report released by the United Nations and government think tanks in early June also ranks the southern states as having the best public health care systems in India. Authorities in these states also issued a blockade order in May. The strategy helped reduce the number of new Covid-19 cases, temporarily controlling the spread of the pathogen. However, Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka and India’s tech hub, still has a higher number of SARS-CoV-2 infections than other major cities. According to Ravi Mehta, an emergency worker at Apollo Hospital in Bangalore, when the hospital set up a new treatment ward at the end of April, all 30 beds were empty in just 90 minutes. When the treatment area was replenished with 70 beds, it was completely empty in less than 3 hours. Although the pressure has now eased, the hospital’s intensive care unit is still full, and is now used to treat patients with serious complications. Resource disparity States like Maharashtra in western India are also highly rated for their ability to respond to the Covid-19 “tsunami”. However, no state in the west really fights the epidemic as effectively as in the south, according to Financial Times . Kerala, where India’s first Covid-19 case was detected in 2020, is a rare state in the west with many bright spots in disease response. During the first wave of the Covid-19 epidemic, Kerala health officials controlled the spread of the disease and brought the number of corona virus infections to zero in a few days in May 2020. The number of Covid-19 cases in Kerala increased to more than 40,000 cases per day in May, but quickly dropped to the threshold of 20,000 cases per day, according to the report. Financial Times . Experts say the authorities of Kerala and Tamil Nadu have tackled the crisis by building networks of healthcare workers to help sick people find treatment. They have also created strategic systems to distribute resources such as oxygen and oxygen tanks, preventing severe shortages. The high number of infections in the southern states of India and at the same time reflect widespread testing, provide a full picture of the epidemic situation. Medical staff in Kerala, India take samples to test for Covid-19. Photo: Indian Express. On the other hand, the fact that the southern states better control the epidemic also exposes the inequality between rich and poor in the world’s No. 2 epidemic center. In May, at least 20 patients at a hospital in rural Karnataka died from lack of oxygen. In Goa, the southern tourist hub, many patients died from inadequate breathing air. PV Ramesh, a doctor and former senior civil servant in Andhra Pradesh, a state in southeastern India, said the Covid-19 crisis will force the whole country to acknowledge the failure of the medical system. public economy of this country. “This outbreak is still seen as an oxygen supply crisis rather than a management crisis (by health officials), Mr. Ramesh said. “As the wave of disease subsides, people will return to normalcy,” Ramesh said. went back to business as usual and didn’t learn any lessons.” Bringing the ashes of unclaimed Covid-19 victims to the Ganges River Indian volunteers collect ashes from crematoriums to organize funerals for Covid-19 victims in Haridwar city.

Dressed in white, Mr. Kumar sat in the courtyard of the crematorium with other monks. Of the 26 pyre, only one is in operation. Another body is on its way there. “It’s comfortable now. Every 3-4 days, a body with Covid-19 will come here. We have time to breathe, eat and sleep,” he said The Hindu . To this day, he still cannot imagine what he had to go through two months ago. Unforgettable days Walking around the crematorium, Mr. Kumar pointed to an empty lot. Here, the staff of the crematorium had to erect 9 more cremation pylons. On another site, 5 pyre were built. Now, this area is just a black coal-stained void, with a few bricks left. Mr. Kumar pointed to the land that used to be the cremation pyre of Covid-19 victims. Photo: The Hindu. Taking a step further, Mr. Kumar pointed to another field. “This used to be a children’s cemetery. However, when the number of deaths peaked, we had to turn this into a crematorium and build 72 more cremation pylons. We even had to break down a wall to move the wood in,” he recalls. For about 10 days in April, more than 20 staff at the crematorium, including monks, sanitation workers and helpers, worked 24 hours a day. They even have to cremate their bodies in the middle of the night, which is against Hindu beliefs. “People leave dead bodies at the door without telling us. In addition, many families asked us to send back the video of the cremation ceremony,” Mr. Kumar recalled. “My mother used to make me go home and sleep for a few hours. I chanted sutras even in my sleep, according to family accounts,” he recalls. “Now I can sleep well.” Mr. Kumar has a 6-month-old baby girl. He did not dare to hold his child for the past month and a half due to fear of contracting Covid-19. At home, he ate and slept in a separate corner, trying to stay away from family members. “We didn’t wear protective gear because it was too hot. Can’t breathe… We just use masks and gloves,” he said. Now, the situation is less tense. When India’s vaccination campaign kicked off, all crematorium staff were vaccinated. This is a priority object due to the need to handle the body of a person who died due to Covid-19. “We once cremated a 6-month-old boy, who died from Covid-19, while the father of the baby wept bitterly. I will never forget this scene,” Mr. Kumar said. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused pain to hundreds of thousands of Indian families. Photo: BBC. Return to normal state At Lok Nayak Hospital, two large tents used to be used as waiting rooms for patients in front of the emergency ward. To date, they have been removed. No more patients on oxygen outside the hospital. There is no longer a long line of ambulances with the sound of the patient’s family crying and begging the hospital to accept it. Mr. Abhay, a community volunteer, reminisces about the shifts at the peak of the epidemic. “I don’t want to remember,” he said. At the Punjabi Bagh crematorium, the trees used to die because new pyrements were erected next to them. Now the green sprout is back. “I got used to this scene from last year, so I wasn’t affected much,” said monk Pankaj Sharma. However, for inexperienced monks and staff, seeing a mass of bodies leaves a psychological impact. “There were days when we didn’t have time to eat,” said Deepanshu, a 23-year-old employee. “A working day starts at 6:30. We help the victim’s family. Many were crying, scared, and didn’t know where to go or what to do. We only get to rest after 9-10pm.” Contrary to Seemapuri crematorium staff, Deepanshu and colleagues have not been vaccinated against Covid-19. “When the vaccination campaign started, government officials called us to get information. They asked us to go to a nearby hospital. However, when they arrived at the hospital, they said we were not on the list,” one staff member told The Hindu. During the peak of the epidemic, Indian crematoriums operated day and night. Photo: Reuters. “We are near the bodies of Covid-19 and many Covid-19 patients. We deserve an injection,” Deepanshu asserted. Currently, only 1-2 bodies infected with Covid-19 are brought to this crematorium every day. Most of the pyre are not working. “The situation here is not as bad as other crematoriums. People still have to wait, but with a much shorter time,” said monk Pankaj Sharma.

A man is vaccinated with AstraZeneca in Jakarta, Indonesia, June 15. Photo: AP The results showed that only 166 cases required hospitalization. Those who received two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were 92% effective without requiring hospitalization, while those who received the Pfizer vaccine, the figure was 94% after dose 1 and 96% after dose 2. “These findings suggest that the level of protection of people with Delta variant from hospitalization is very high. Understanding this is important in assessing the danger that Delta variant poses to the general population.” , the study authors concluded. “The effect of not requiring hospitalization because the Delta variant after one injection of AstraZeneca is 71% and after two injections is 92%. This metric really reassures India. To choose the direction, I think we should should use modeling approaches to devise different implementation strategies and compare the impact of vaccines at each stage of the epidemic,” commented Professor of Microbiology Gagandeep Kang of India. The Delta variant first appeared in India and has been classified as a “variant of concern” by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), while the World Health Organization (WHO) has called it a “variant of concern”. it is a ‘disturbing variation’. The Delta variant is expected to become a common strain in the US next fall, increasing the risk of a new wave of disease in unvaccinated people later this year.

Dwarka City, India: Dwarka is in the harbor area of ​​Dwarka city, Gujarat state, India, located at a depth of 21.3m. This city was built between 9,000 and 12,000 years ago. This place used to be a flourishing city because of the remnants of the foundation, walls, sandstone steps and the remaining network of streets and seaports. The most notable structures are the ruins of temples dating from the reign of King Pallava, 7th century BC. Lion City, Lake Tiandao, China: The Lion City was built during the Eastern Han period (circa 25-200) at the foot of the Five Lions Mountain. When China carried out the project to build the Tan An dam at Tiandao Lake in 1959, the city was submerged under water. In this city before it was flooded, 290,000 people were displaced from the place where their ancestors lived for 1,300 years. The structure is believed to be a miniature version of the city of Atlantis and is part of a collection of miniature versions of the wonders of the world in China. Baiae City, Italy: Once considered the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire, Baiae city was considered a resort for the rich in ancient times. 1,700 years ago it began to sink into the waters of the Gulf of Naples, Italy. In the 8th century, Saracen troops occupied Baiae, by 1500 the city was deserted and most of the ancient ruins were submerged in the shallow waters of a bay near the Naples range. Pavlopetri, Greece: Pavlopetri was a prosperous port city of the Mediterranean region for many centuries. Located off the southern Greek island of Laconia, Pavlopetri was formed during the Mycenaean period, dating to about 1600-1150 BC. Currently, this city still has the foundation of buildings, streets, temples and about 37 stone tombs. Yonaguni Ancient Ruins, Japan: This is one of the mysterious sites on Yonaguni Island in Okinawa Japan, which may be up to 10,000 years old. In the 1980s, divers found stone platforms with a stepped-like structure with flat surfaces and clear angles that resonated in the scientific world later. This monument is also known as “Atlantis of Japan”. Antirhodos City, Alexandria, Egypt: This ancient underwater island is believed to have been submerged by an earthquake around the 4th century and was found in 1996 near the harbor of Alexandria. Explorers have found a marble palace in the 3rd century BC, believed to have belonged to Cleopatra’s time, along with some jewelry, traces of ancient cargo ships, stone houses and wells. Atlit-Yam, Israel: Atlit-Yam was formed in the Neolithic period (7,550-8,000 years ago), is a densely populated area along the coast of Carmel. The city was completely destroyed by a tsunami but today visitors can still see the remains of the foundations of houses, roads and wells. Here also found about 65 sets of adult and child remains.

Miss Universe 69th: Miss Mexico Andrea Meza. Miss Mexico Andrea Meza brings to Miss Universe a costume inspired by a traditional craft village of this country called Alebrijje, which is a surrealist craft made of cardboard and paper. or wood. Colorful costumes with bold Mexican spirit. Miss Mexico Andrea Meza is 26 years old this year, she is 1m82 tall. 1st runner-up: Miss Brazil Julia Gama Miss Brazil wears a dress inspired by the cotton fields of her homeland. The outfit received mixed reviews because it showed too much skin. Miss Brazil, Julia Gama, she is 1m77 tall. 2nd runner-up: Miss Peru Janick Maceta Del Castillo Miss Peru Janick Maceta Del Castillo was the last-minute national costume change contestant. The outfit she performed on the official stage of Miss Universe was inspired by the Andes flamingo, the rarest flamingo in the world. Miss Peru, Janick Maceta Del Castillo, she is 1m77 tall. 3rd runner-up: Miss India Adline Castelino. Miss India Adline Castelino with set saree familiar in this country. The national costume has the pink color of the lotus, which is also the national flower of India. The costume is highly appreciated for its simplicity, no frills but true to the spirit of the national costume. In addition, Adline is extremely beautiful, she is praised for appearing like a princess. Miss India Adline Castelino, she is 1m69 tall. 4th runner-up: Miss CH Dominic Kimberly Jimenez. Miss Dominic Kimberly Jimenez in a sunflower-inspired outfit. This is the favorite flower of the Dominican people, grown a lot in the central part of the country. Miss CH Dominic Kimberly Jimenez, she is 1m78 tall.

The white water lily (Shapla) is the symbol of Bangladesh. To the people of Bangladesh, the white water lily also symbolizes purity and peace. In the capital of Bangladesh, a large water lily statue was erected to show the nation’s respect for the flower. The current capital of Bangladesh is Dhaka city, located in central Bangladesh. This is the major industrial, cultural and commercial center of this country; area of ​​815.85 km2, population more than 7 million people. Dhaka became the capital of Bangladesh in 1971. Bangladesh is officially the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, a country in South Asia, along with countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal… This country has a natural area of ​​nearly 150,000 square kilometers, a population of 166 million people. Myanmar is the only country in Southeast Asia that borders Bangladesh in the southeast of this South Asian country. Bangladesh borders India, Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal. The country’s name means “Country of the Bengal”, referring to the Indo-Aryan ethnic group living in the Bengal region of South Asia. Bangladesh is one of the largest Muslim countries in the world, with more than 80% of the population (148 million people), being Sunni Muslims – the largest branch of Islam. The current currency of Bangladesh is the Bangladeshi Taka. The Bangladeshi taka was introduced in 1972, a year after Bangladesh became an independent country.

Not only 4 levels 4 India is a country of diversity in all aspects: culture, religion, race, language… Hinduism is the largest religion in India (currently 966 million followers) and is the The world’s third largest religion (1.03 billion adherents) played a key role in shaping India’s social fabric. From this religion arose the caste system in Indian society, and it dominates, has a profound, lasting impact with many consequences in society to this day. Dharavi slum in Mumbai. Dharavi is one of the most densely populated places in the world. The blue roofs are actually plastic cloth to keep out the rain. Photo: Daily Mail The structure of Indian society according to writer and cultural researcher Geetesh Sharma is “a collection of irregular elements, but strangely, it is arranged into a clear layer system”. Looking from the outside in, the overlapping Indian society is caste, class, religion, language, region… But if the caste system is positioned as the backbone of the whole Indian social structure, all things will become orderly and clear. This system was formed thousands of years ago, and to this day, it remains the root cause of social unrest. Most Indian and Western scholars agree that the caste system is a feature of Hinduism. However, along with the birth and introduction of other religions, the caste system also had a certain influence on Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Jainism. The English word caste is caste, which is not a single Indian word. According to the Oxford dictionary, caste is derived from the Portuguese word casta, meaning “race, lineage, breed” and primitive meaning “pure and unadulterated”. There is no concept in the Indian language that fully represents the word, but only two approximate terms, varna and jati. Varna means color, and was the first framework of social demarcation in the Vedic period. The four castes in the varna are the Brahmins (the priestly caste, also known as the Brahmin castes), the Kshatriyas (also known as the Rajanyas, the castes of noble princes and warriors), the Vaishyas (the craftsmen) , merchants, farmers) and Shudras (class of slaves, people who did the hard work). However, there is still a fifth caste in the varna system that is not officially recognized in the scriptures, the Dalit (untouchable) caste. People of this caste are considered “outside of society” and have to do jobs that are considered despicable such as dumping feces, picking up trash, etc. Whereas, jati means birth, origin. This concept is less mentioned in the scriptures than in varna. There are thousands of jati, and currently there is no exact definition for this concept. Where is the origin? From the West’s pro-racist theory… There are many explanations from anthropologists, archaeologists and both Indian and world historians as to the origin of this particular caste system over the past century. However, it is possible to temporarily group the hypotheses of Indian caste origin into three large theoretical groups: racial theory, contingency theory, and genetic proofs. Race theory started from a debate between two British researchers and managers in India JC Nesfield and HH Risley. According to Risley, the caste system was formed from racial clash. He suggested that the “light-skinned” Aryans had entered the Indian subcontinent from the northwest and conquered the native “black” Dravidian race. Risley’s explanation is that the Aryans, after conquest, conquered the weaker race, captured women according to their needs and created hybrid offspring, thereby becoming a higher caste. Meanwhile, Nesfield commented that “the issue of caste origin is not only about race, but also about culture”. The racial theory of caste formation encouraged racist ideas, which were originally developed to enhance the status of Europeans in the subcontinent. A family in the slums of Mumbai on April 3. Photo: AP To the objection of the Indian scholar himself học Indian scholars have countered Risley’s racial theory. Researcher Ketkar argues that castes are more a result of tribal conflicts than between Aryans and Dravidians. Ketkar’s view was that all Indians, with limited exceptions from the east, belonged to a single race, and expressed concern that racial theories could cause division in society. The reactions of the Indian scientific community led to the creation of the so-called random theory. In this view, caste regimes are the product of specific historical events, which may be limited to a particular time and place. This theory has an important contribution Dr. Ambedkar (who comes from the Dalit caste, and also drafted the Constitution of India). Ambedkar rejected the racial theory and attacked those who had “used biology to protect the caste system”. He emphasized on Nesfield’s research with the conclusion that there is no racial difference between different castes in the same area, and at the same time concluded that “the caste system is the distinction in society between different castes”. people of the same race”. End of the hundred year debate In the mid-1990s, scientists began to use genetics as a tool to examine the origin of caste systems as well as the extent to which castes were related. Since then, a series of genetic studies on the caste system have been produced. The first genetic studies reached conclusions consistent with the randomization theory. Accordingly, there is no corresponding relationship between genetic relationships and socio-cultural structure. Subsequent studies, however, yielded very mixed results, with some supporting the race theory. To date, studies using genetics to understand the origin of the caste system continue to be carried out. Liberate class, liberate people Although the debate has not yet led to a final result, it has at least contributed much differently, from the rejection of the “divine” about the origin of the castes, when the Rig-Veda (Vedas) that castes were born from different parts of the primitive man, in which the upper caste was born from the upper body, and the lowest caste was born from the heart. This is extremely important, because it will lead to the destruction of the concept of “class is inherently natural, is immutable”. This was the premise to liberate the lower castes from the strict caste system, and was an important step towards human liberation. Medical staff check people’s health in a slum in Mumbai. Photo: Guardian Second, studies have shown that caste originates from socio-political factors rather than from religion. And without exception, the caste system is a tool created by rulers to establish a stable, orderly and favorable social structure for them to easily rule. The current caste system is a huge barrier affecting India’s development. Recent surveys show that caste discrimination still shows no signs of abating, but on the contrary, tends to be more serious. The 2014 census shows that the percentage of people from the lower castes, especially those belonging to the Dalit caste, are facing severe discrimination with the lowest percentage in the following criteria: access to education, health care, employment… Social injustices related to the lower castes persist, whether in urban or rural areas, demonstrating the tension in modern Indian society. Although the Indian government has constitutionally prohibited the practice of any discrimination against the lower castes, the fact that there are separate laws on “reservation” for the lower castes shows that The situation is not optimistic. Specifically, India has compiled a list of vulnerable castes, and calls it “Nominal Castes”. Accordingly, all state agencies (including the National Assembly), universities, military, police… must reserve a certain percentage of their “seats” for these identified classes. This, while having a positive effect on the lower castes, clearly demonstrates India’s inability to prevent discriminatory practices. Luu Duy Tran (Doctoral student at Jeonbuk National University, Korea)

“The new naming does not replace the scientific names of the variants, but can aid in public discussion,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical team leader on Covid-19. Other SARS-CoV-2 variants of interest will be labeled with the words “Epsiloon”, “Zeta”, “Eta”, “Theta” and “Iota”. (Artwork: BBC) Under the new system, the British variant (B.1.1.7) is called “Alpha”, the South African variant (B.1.351) is “Beta”, the Brazilian variant (P1) is “Gamma”. The Indian variant B.1.617 is divided into sub-lineages, where the B.1.617.2 variant is called “Delta” and the B.1.617.1 variant is called “Kappa”. Names such as variant B.1.1.7.2 will continue to be used in scientific circles, because of the mutational information their names convey. “Despite their advantages, scientific names can be difficult to say and remember, and easily misinterpreted. As a result, people often refer to variants by the places where they were first discovered, causing stigma and discrimination,” according to the WHO statement. “To avoid this and simplify mass communication, WHO encourages authorities, national media and everyone else to use these new names,” the WHO said. The Greek alphabet has 24 letters and WHO has not yet planned what to do next if all 24 letters are used. According to AFP, “Epsilon”, “Zeta”, “Eta”, “Theta” and “Iota” are names for variants of interest.

WHO technical team leader on Covid-19 Maria Van Kerkhove. Photo: AFP According to the new announcement, WHO will use Greek letters to refer to variants that were first detected in countries such as the UK, South Africa and India. For example, the variant in the UK is called Alpha, in South Africa it is Beta, and in India it is Delta. The full list of names has been published on the WHO website. The Government of India earlier this month criticized the naming of variant B.1.617.2 – first detected in the country last October – as “Indian variant”, despite WHO never officially called it that. “No country should be discriminated against in detecting and reporting variants,” said WHO’s Covid-19 technical team leader Maria Van Kerkhove, “we don’t want to replace scientific names.” available, but only to assist in the transmission of certain information to the general public” If more than 24 variants are officially identified, meaning the system will run out of Greek letters, WHO will announce the new designation. Ms. Van Kerkhove on May 31 also called for close monitoring of variants and sharing of scientific data to help prevent the spread. Over the weekend, Vietnamese health officials warned of a new virus variant, which is believed to be a dangerous combination of two Alpha and Delta variants. While a scientific adviser to the British Government on May 31 said that the country is in the early stages of a third wave of Covid-19 infections, partly due to the Delta variant.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Photo: Reuters As suggested by WHO, the COVID-19 mutation is called “British strain” or B.1.1.7 should be called “Alpha”, while the common mutant strain in South Africa is renamed “Beta” . The two Brazilian strains, called P.1 and P.2, became Gamma and Zeta, respectively, while the two subtypes of the “Indian variant”, B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2, were called “Kappa” and “Delta”. Two other strains, first reported by the US in March of this year, were assigned the most difficult names to remember, “Epsilon” and “Iota”. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s COVID-19 expert team, stressed that the new names will not replace the scientific name of the strain, because the scientific name is a complex combination of letters and numbers. Instead, the new name will make it easier for people to name variables in public discussions. At the same time, this will help remove the stigma against the country that first discovered the mutation. “No country should be discriminated against for detecting and reporting mutations,” and Van Kerkhove said. WHO List of VOCs of concern. List of Variants of Interest (VOI). In which, the first column is the new name proposed by WHO. The WHO’s new move comes in the context of India’s growing anger when the media calls the B.1.617 virus strain an “Indian variant”. India’s Health Ministry argued last month that the name freely used in the media was “misleading” because it was not a name designated by the WHO. Earlier, in February, Professor Salim Abdool Karim, then co-chair of South Africa’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19, told CNN in an interview to stop calling the virus spreading. in his country is the “South African variant.” Instead, call it by its scientific name: 501Y.V2. The politically correct idea of ​​WHO is supported by many countries. But it also confuses many people. Some observers argue that Greek letters are actually not that easy to remember. While others point out that the WHO is in danger of “running out of names” at some point, since the Greek alphabet has only 24 letters.

In this South Asian country, it is easy to find similar shrines dedicated to Covid-19 and other plagues. “Goddess Corona is the only hope” Since the outbreak of the pandemic, India has recorded more than 27 million cases and more than 322,000 deaths from Covid-19. The latest outbreak that began in March has left the country’s health system in crisis because of a lack of hospital beds and oxygen. In states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Assam, women gather near temples or under sacred trees to worship the corona virus, which is realized in the form of a goddess known as “Corona Maa”. . They sit around in a circle and perform rituals, offering milk, coconuts, flowers and sweets to the deity. Some chanted prayers to appease the goddess’ wrath. Bimla Kumari, a resident of Patna, the capital of Bihar state, said: “We are worshiping ‘Corona Maa’ so that our family members remain safe from the virus. The goddess’s wrath will be appeased with offerings, for she is an angry goddess, not a benevolent goddess. The hospitals are overcrowded and the government doesn’t care. So the goddess is our only hope.” After worshiping “Corona Maa” under a banyan tree with his friends, Kumari said “luckily, everyone gathered here today is healthy”. Monks perform a prayer ritual before the god “Corona Devi” at Kamatchipuri Adhinam temple in Coimbatore city to ask for blessings and help people overcome the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo: AFP. In India, there is a long tradition that in times of disaster, people turn to faith to alleviate suffering. The worshipers of Sheetla Mata – the goddess of smallpox – believed that she would protect them from the disease by killing the demons believed to cause it. Goddess Sheetla Mata is said to be the reincarnation of the Hindu goddess Durga. A 300-year-old temple in Gurgaon, near New Delhi, is dedicated to this goddess Sheetla Mata. In addition, some other temples specialize in praying for healing. These places worship male deities, for example Vaitheeswaran temple in the town of Mayiladuthurai in the state of Tamil Nadu. Here, devotees pray before the incarnation of Lord Shiva. Mahadeva Temple in Kerala state is where devotees come to cure epilepsy and chronic asthma. In the Tumkur district of neighboring Karnataka state, cancer patients regularly visit the Areyuru Vaidhyanatheshwara temple. They believe that this temple can cure them without treatment with modern medicine. The Pataleshwar Temple in the city of Muradabad, Uttar Pradesh – now closed due to the pandemic – is often a popular destination for people with skin diseases. Many pilgrims come here to ask for blessings by bringing brooms as offerings or sweeping the floors of the temple. Broom shops near temples are usually very expensive on weekends. After offering, most brooms are returned to the seller and continue to be sold to the next person. Elsewhere in the state of Uttar Pradesh, a hand pump at the Jagnewa Hanuman temple pumps up water that many believe has healing powers. Believers believe that a saint touched the pump and infused it with healing powers. They take water in a glass bottle and pour it over the patient’s body in the belief that they will be cured. Anant Kumar, a local, said: ‘My daughter’s chronic asthma – a disease that modern medicine could not cure for many years – disappeared within a month after she took it. water is taken from this manual pump”. Monks worship idols of god Shiva and goddess Parvati at a temple in Prayagraj city, India. Photo: AP. Cultural traditions or superstition? Millions of Indians place their trust in such “healing” temples. Meanwhile, many people are still skeptical about this and think that this is superstition. Harsh Bhagnani, an engineer in Mumbai, said: “Healing temples are just as effective as a placebo for fanatics. Curative therapies should be rooted in modern science and medicine.” Some opponents of these temples argue that the reason people flock here is because the health care system in India is not focused on investment. According to the results of the Human Development Report 2020 of the United Nations Development Program, India ranks 155 out of 167 countries in terms of the number of hospital beds available to meet people’s needs. The country-specific rate is 5 hospital beds and 8.6 doctors per 10,000 population. However, for RP Mitra, a professor of anthropology at Delhi University, these religious rituals are deeply rooted in the Indian subconscious. Indian hospitals are overwhelmed by the second wave of Covid-19, with shortages of hospital beds and medical oxygen. Photo: Reuters. “These temples are a fulcrum, helping believers in times of insecurity, fear, and suffering caused by deadly diseases. The temples can be seen as a supernatural complex.” Professor Mitra analyzed. He said religious people may still want to receive divine blessings and still have faith in modern medicine, as the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. “Whether it’s traditional Chinese medicine or ancient therapies practiced across countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal or India, religious beliefs have always been incorporated into traditional medicine,” he said. said more. Countries rush to send medical supplies to India Before the request for support from India, some countries rushed to send medical equipment, including ventilators and oxygen generators, to support the South Asian country in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

On April 12, three million Indians gathered on the banks of the Ganges River. They gathered in the ancient city of Haridwar, in the state of Uttarakhand, to take a dip in the sacred river. Devoted and full of Hindu devotees crowded the streets. The Naga Sadhus, the “saints” of the Hindu ascetic practice, pose for a photo on the banks of the Ganges. Photo: AFP. This is one of the holiest days of the Kumbh Mela festival. This festival is one of the most important occasions for Hindus, attracting millions of pilgrims every year. On the same day, India recorded 169,000 new Covid-19 cases and surpassed Brazil to become the second hardest-hit country by the pandemic, according to Guardian . Ignore danger In the weeks before that, a second deadly wave of Covid-19 swept across the whole of India. However, calls to cancel the festival were rejected. By April 15, more than 2,000 festivalgoers had tested positive for the virus. As of the end of the festival on April 28, more than 9 million people have soaked in the water of the Ganges River. The actual number of Kumbh Mela participants is yet to be announced. Millions of pilgrims return home without being tested or quarantined. Several states have begun belated efforts to trace and isolate returnees from Kumbh Mela. In Madhya Pradesh, 789 pilgrims have been placed in quarantine. Of those, 118 tested positive. The Naga Sandhus attend a procession on the banks of the Ganges. Photo: Reuters. T Jacob John, former head of virology at the Indian Council of Medical Research, said: “The pilgrims in the states carry with them mutated strains of the virus and spread the disease everywhere.” . Ashish Jha, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, said that Kumbh Mela could be “the largest super-contagious event in the history of the Covid-19 pandemic”. Devotees attend night prayers on the banks of the Ganges River at the Kumbh Mela festival, April 13. Photo: Reuters. During the festival period, the state of Uttarakhand recorded a 1,800% increase in the number of virus positive cases. Most of the infections are related to the Kumbh Mela festival. No one escapes Covid-19 Thakur Puran Singh, a senior member of the BJP, does not believe he has contracted Covid-19 at Kumbh Mela. At dawn on April 9, he and his family drove nearly 600 km to Haridwar to attend the Kumbh Mela. Over the next five days, his family took several dips in the Ganges River. On April 16, a day after returning home, Mr. Singh started showing symptoms of Covid-19. At first, he refused to believe that he had Covid-19. However, on April 21, his condition worsened. When he was taken to a local hospital, doctors suspected he had Covid-19 because his lungs had been damaged. His son did not believe him and took him to another hospital that he considered more reputable. Thakur Puran Singh and family participate in Kumbh Mela festival. Photo: The Guardian. “I couldn’t believe the doctors and their diagnosis. I didn’t even wear a mask when I took my dad to the hospital,” said Dinesh Singh Thakur. However, Mr. Singh died en route. Eight days later, his brother, Balwant Singh, also died with symptoms of Covid-19. “Even after Mr Singh’s death, the family kept a secret that they had come to Kumbh Mela,” said Dr. Shameema, regional medical director. After returning, they also participated in four weddings. Dr Iqbal Malik, another health official, confirmed that four members of Mr Singh’s family have tested positive. More than two dozen other people who were in close contact with Singh’s family members also had similar results. Mr. Singh’s body was cremated according to the procedures of the victim who died from Covid-19. However, his family still does not believe that he died from the virus. “There are 11 people in my family, why is it that only my father is gone? My father’s death was not due to Covid-19. Fate has called him,” Thakur said. Regret Gopal Singh’s family and neighbors were touched to see him return to his hometown from Kumbh Mela. The people of Madhi Chaubisa village came out to greet him and hoped for blessings. Contrary to the joy of the villagers, he was still terrified. Singh joined about 100 others from the surrounding villages on a sacred pilgrimage to Kumbh Mela. On the way home, he saw everyone falling ill. Many passengers said they had high fever and diarrhea. However, their vehicle did not stop at any of the Covid-19 testing sites. Devotees await the Naga Sadhus at the Kumbh Mela festival. Photo: AP. “I have been to Kumbh Mela twice before but I have never seen anything like this. A lot of people have been infected,” he said. Mr Singh insisted on being tested for Covid-19 despite a local doctor dismissing his concerns. Four days later, as expected, he was positive for SARS-CoV-2. Before that, he had contact with many people in the village. Three other people traveling with Mr Singh also tested positive. Ragu Raj Dangi, head of the village, said: “After everyone returned from Kumbh Mela, the number of people with Covid-19 has increased to more than 30 cases in just a few days. There are still a lot of other people who have symptoms but haven’t been tested.” A few days later, Mamta Bhai, Mr. Singh’s neighbour, developed a fever. She was treated by a local doctor. Although she was later taken to the intensive care unit, she still did not survive. Singh feels guilty: “Stubbornness and ignorance pushed us into a disaster. I feel terrible. Because of fanatics like me, other people get the virus.” Mr. Pragyaanant Giri, a Hindu monk, also went to Kumbh Mela. Like many at the monastery, he believes Covid-19 is a conspiracy. After a month of attending the festival, Mr. Giri developed symptoms of a sore throat and high fever. His companions advised him to rest. The police officer asks a person to leave after taking a dip in the water of the Ganges. Photo: Reuters. After that, his condition worsened. After two weeks of intensive care, Mr. Giri passed away. Despite the rules for patients dying from Covid-19, his body was buried at the monastery. People in the monastery said: “More than 10 people who came into contact with Mr Giri have developed Covid-19 symptoms and some have been hospitalized. However, most members of the monastery are not tested.” Even after Giri’s death, the belief that Covid-19 is not real still pervades the monastery. Swami Harigiri, the head of the monastery, thinks this is a plot against the Hindus. “We drink cow urine. Covid-19 will not affect us. Giri’s death caused by Covid-19 is fake news,” he said. In a small village in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, a group of five women came to the festival on an 11-day trip. After returning, two people died. Although the local health department announced the victims had tested negative for Covid-19, family members told a different story. Awadh Kishore Tiwari, grandson of Bindu Devi, one of the two dead women, said: “She fell ill the day she returned home. The very next day she was gone forever. My mother also tested positive after coming into contact with her.” Ms Devi’s brother-in-law, Awadhesh Chauhan, said he advised her not to attend the Kumbh Mela because of Covid-19. However, she laughed off: “Nothing will happen to me, don’t worry”. Bringing the ashes of unclaimed Covid-19 victims to the Ganges River Indian volunteers collect ashes from crematoriums to organize funerals for Covid-19 victims in Haridwar city.

They can be found all over the world, including India. But in India, there is a heavy price that thousands of miners working illegally in mica mines in the country are paying. Poor and dangerous working conditions Widow Basanti Mosamat, 40, lives in Jharkhand who specializes in collecting and selling scrap mica for a living. This is her family’s only source of income. Once a week, Mosamat, her father-in-law and her five children hike 10 kilometers into the woods near the village to set up camp and spend a few days sifting for minerals. Picking up mica from dawn to dusk without any protective gear left her hands scratched and bruised. Her eldest daughter has picked up mica since she was 5. The more hands on the job, the more likely the family will have food on the table. “One mica picker is not enough. My father passed away, so I had to help my mother,” she said. 1 kg of shredded mica sells for 7 rupees ($0.10). On a lucky day, the Mosamat family hopes to earn 150 rupees ($2.06). Mica miners. Photo: CNA They are part of India’s 100 million indigenous people known as the Adivasis, who live on the fringes of society with limited government support for health, education, job security and food. “There’s nothing here, a life of hunger and fullness makes it impossible for us to look forward to the future,” Birhor said. Poverty has led some miners to turn to abandoned caves and mines, where there is more mica. However, they do not have lights or protective equipment, only exploiting based on experience. “People can slip and fall somewhere or get kicked in the head. Mining is very difficult. We always have to be vigilant, the mine is likely to collapse at any time. Sometimes one mistake can kill them all,” said Mukesh Bhulla, who started picking up mica as a scared child. In January, there were at least three reports of mine collapses in Koderma and Jharkhand. An estimated 10 to 20 people die each month due to the risks of mica mining. In fact, there are more accidents than are reported. However amateur miners have no choice but to take the risk. “If we didn’t work here, we would all die. There is no other option for the job. What are we going to do?”, shared Dimpi Devi, a mother of three. This makes people like Devi very vulnerable to exploitation, especially when they can’t afford living expenses. If they cannot borrow from mainstream banks, they have to look to usury lenders with interest rates up to 200%/year. “Some people told us they were only allowed to sell mica to their creditors at the price these merchants asked for,” said investigative journalist Peter Bengtsen. He has been monitoring the mica trade in Jharkhand for more than a decade. “Basically, the deal will last until they pay off their debts,” Bengtsen said. Forest management inspections are also common, and miners are sometimes required to pay bribes to keep working. Mosamat said: “The police don’t visit us often, but the rangers keep an eye on us. “There is a network of people manipulating mica mining and they are very powerful,” said Deepak Bara, a freelance journalist based in Jharkhand. Indian children participate in mica mining. Photo: CNA A systemic problem Controversy over mica mining began to surface in the mid-2000s, following investigations into the use of child labor in the industry. According to the International Labor Organization, India has more than 10 million children who are working even though they are not of working age. In particular, the plight of child miners in the mica industry has attracted international media attention. However, according to many journalists and politicians, children born into mica mining families have no choice but to continue the work of their parents. “They have to earn extra income for the family. The government does not have a policy to support children or if it does, it is not effective,” Bara said. In response to growing public concern, several global campaigns have been established. One of them is the Mica Initiative, which intends to eliminate child mining in Jharkhand next year. Members of the campaign include Chanel, L’Oréal and Sephora. Some other brands are also committed to more rigorous testing of the supply chain. However, they must also admit that managing mica sources is very difficult. In 2019, mica exports in India reached more than 37 million USD (according to World Bank data). With so many transactions, brands can’t track exactly where their mica comes from. Yue Jin Tay, business development manager of Circulor, a company that uses blockchain to verify the provenance of minerals in the supply chain, said technology could be part of the solution but more is needed to make it happen. Ethical trading became a common practice. And consumers need to accept that the company has to pay increasing costs to more rigorously examine the supply chain.

A healthcare worker is vaccinated against COVID-19 at a hospital in Kolkata, India. Photo: AP In India, the number of infections on May 30 was 165,553 cases, the lowest level in the past 6 weeks. The number of deaths also tended to decrease, to 3,460 cases and the third day in a row below 4,000 cases.

The vaccination campaign is being accelerated by India, although vaccine supply remains a big challenge. As of May 30, India has injected more than 212 million doses of the vaccine, ranking third in the world after China and the US. About 12% of the population was vaccinated with at least one dose, of which 3.1% were fully vaccinated. Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s government said on May 30 that about 120 million doses of the vaccine will be included in the vaccination program in June, a significant increase from 79.8 million doses in May. , government advisers also said that India could reach a supply of 2 billion doses of vaccine between August and December this year, mainly from two domestic manufacturers, the Serum Institute of India (Serum Institute of India). SII) – responsible for producing vaccine samples of AstraZeneca and Bharat Biotech Company, the focal point of domestic production of Covaxin vaccine. In June, the government will provide 60.9 million doses of vaccine to the states to vaccinate health workers along with some other forces on the frontline against the epidemic, people over 45 years old. About 58.6 million doses will be ordered and distributed by state governments and private hospitals. Malaysia on May 30 recorded 6,999 new cases of COVID-19 and was the 5th consecutive day of outbreaks of infection. The government of this country plans to set up more large-scale vaccination centers, mobilize private medical staff to participate in vaccination campaigns in the context of Malaysia preparing to implement a nationwide shutdown. for a period of two weeks, from June 1-14. Medical staff take samples for COVID-19 testing for people in Selangor, Malaysia on May 23, 2021. Photo: THX/VNA Speaking at an online press conference on May 30, Malaysian Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin said the government will establish five new large-scale vaccination centers in Kuala Lumpur and have Two more similar centers could be established in the northern state of Penang and the southern state of Johor. Each of such centers has the capacity to administer 40,000 doses of vaccination per day. The Government will also conduct training and training for doctors and nurses to perform vaccinations, stemming from the fact that some vaccines need different handling and storage methods and are different from conventional vaccines. Mr. Jamaluddin also said that the supply of vaccines will increase in the near future, so the government will mobilize manpower from hospitals and private medical centers to voluntarily participate in the vaccination campaign. According to Jamaluddin, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s government is also expected to set up mobile vaccination centers at roads to vaccinate people. Currently, about 6% of Malaysia’s 32 million people have received at least one vaccination. In the Philippines, the head of the Philippine Government’s COVID-19 Task Force, Mr. Czar Carlito Galvez Jr, said on May 30 that more than 5 million doses of the vaccine have been administered to people, after nearly 3 months of implementation. vaccination campaign. People wear masks to prevent COVID-19 infection in Manila, Philippines. Photo: THX/VNA Most of these were administered to priority groups, including 1.4 million doses for healthcare workers, 1.368 million doses for the elderly and 1,150 million doses for people with underlying medical conditions. Vaccines introduced in the Philippines include Sinovac, AstraZeneca, Sputnik V and Pfizer. Galvez also said that in June, the Philippines is expected to receive an additional 10 million doses of vaccine, including the amount of vaccine through the Covax Initiative program, 2.3 million doses of Pfizer vaccine, 2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine and 1 million doses of vaccine. Sinovac vaccine. The first batch of 250,000 doses of Moderna is also expected to arrive on June 21. The administration of President Rodrigo Duterte has set a target of vaccinating about 70 million people or more than 50% of the population this year. However, this plan is facing major challenges. In addition to the limited supply of vaccines, the lack of confidence in Chinese vaccines is also a big barrier. It was Mr. Duterte who recently had to speak to reassure, urging people to avoid the mentality of choosing a vaccine, but to see that having a vaccine to inject is already a good thing.

Highlights in the frames come from sparkling diamond accessories and fancy long nails with the help of makeup artist Ash K Holm. All moments were taken by photographer Sita Abellan. Kim Kardashian caused controversy with diamond-encrusted earrings with the sign “Om”. Photo: @sitabellan. However, Kim quickly faced a wave of criticism from netizens after wearing earrings with the “Om” logo. According to the Independent This is a sacred sound and spiritual symbol in Indian religious culture including Buddhism and Hinduism. In 3 photos, the audience sees the objection when Kim lies on the bed wearing silver diamond-encrusted earrings with the sign “Om” and a charming face. Many people consider wearing this accessory a cultural insult and disrespect for Indian beliefs. “This is a symbol of religion. Why is she bringing it out as an accessory? The symbol is sacred, not a fashion aesthetic specifically for her. I hope Kim apologizes to everyone. people”, the social network user commented. Fashion set of Kim Kardashian and photographer Sita Abellan. Photo: @sitabellan. Previously, Kim made the Japanese angry when naming the lingerie brand with the name of the country’s national costume – Kimono. Before the wave of protests, she said this was a misunderstanding and the brand was not related to the kimono of the country of cherry blossoms. Even the mayor of Tokyo even wrote a letter to Kim. In the end, she had to change the brand name to Skims. In addition, Kim Kardashian was also strongly criticized by the public for deliberately darkening her skin in the image promoting the product line of cosmetic brand KKW Beauty. Many netizens believe that she has shown the “black face” action in the form of makeup, because she has never had dark skin. In the 19th century, “black face” was a common racist act in the entertainment industry. In plays and movies, non-black artists often painted their faces black, playing low-class working-class people such as slaves, gardeners, and nannies. By the 1960s, this movement ended after the civil rights movement of African-Americans. Kim Kardashian intentionally colorizes photos to dark skin like women of color. Photo: KKW Beauty.

Also according to Prof. Dr. Le Thi Quynh Mai, B.1.617.2 data on GISAID currently has not recorded the loss of Y144 mutation, so this mutation needs to be further monitored and studied. GISAID is an updated map of SARS-CoV-2 gene sequencing results, which is continuously updated by scientists around the globe. This map was consulted by scientists in different countries, closely following the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Earlier, at the National Online Conference on the situation and urgent solutions to prevent and control the Covid-19 epidemic taking place on the morning of May 29, Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long informed: The strain is currently common in Vietnam. Nam is an Indian strain that has shown signs of increased infectivity and more severe disease compared to previous outbreaks. Step 1: Visit https://www.bluezone.gov.vn or download directly at App Store or CH Play. Step 2: Once downloaded, the application will ask for permission to use Bluetooth to record contact with other Bluezone installed users. If Bluetooth is not open, drag the status bar and turn on Bluetooth; or go to Settings, select Bluetooth and turn it on. Step 3: Once the installation is done, click Scan Around. If someone near you less than 2m has used Bluezone, the application will automatically identify these users and put them in the contact list.

The caste system, the division of rich and poor, the dowry custom, the cremation custom in India, the horrible unsanitary life on the Ganges River were shared by the female writer in her travel book “Lonely on Everest”. “. On the occasion of the Covid-19 earthquake raging violently in India, writer Di Li shared his experiences about this country on his personal Facebook page. VietNamNet would like to introduce to readers: Writer Di Li visits the Victoria Museum in Kolkata, India (photo: Di Li) Criticizing poor and dirty India: a half perspective The number of deaths from Covid in India has reached 4,529 cases / day (an incomplete number), the highest in the world since the beginning of the epidemic season until now. Indians have the custom of cremation, so if people die too much, they will break branches in the park and burn their bodies on the sidewalk, poor people can’t buy firewood and can’t steal branches from the park. then stealthily carry the body of a relative to the door of the funeral home, throw it, then abandon the body and run for someone else, or more simply, let the body be thrown into the Ganges River to float. The virus in the body just mixes with the river water and then drifts downstream wherever it goes, whoever it sticks to next, while the water of the Ganges River still travels throughout Asia. I have been to India 4 times (March 18 last year was canceled because of India’s blockade due to Covid-19, not 5 times). Trot has already changed money, so there is still a pile of rupees in the drawer. Because India is a passion, a destination that I can fly to several dozen times in my life. In short, every time I make a fuss, I buy a ticket to India. Many people think that India is dirty and poor, Indians are ugly, Indian boys are fierce, India is backward, India is uncivilized… but only half of it has been seen. In New Delhi, there are many greener, cleaner, more beautiful places than Europe, with great buildings dating back many centuries. India is the world’s second silicon valley and is set to overtake the US in computing software capacity. The place that produces the most movies is Bollywood, not Hollywood. The countries that own the most Miss Universe in the world, in addition to a few South American countries, there is also India. India has many beautiful people, because they are multi-racial. The young man covered in a scarf who looks like a football star is a tuk tuk driver in the village in Jaipur – photo taken in 2013 (photo: Di Li) For example, two young men I met and took random pictures in Jaipur. The young man with a scarf who looks like a soccer star is a tuk tuk driver in the village (I only took portraits because if I scrolled down… he was wearing ripped pants). The Indian guy with dark glasses that I (Di Li) took with me was a street vendor, making the whole crew bewildered because he looked like a Hollywood actor” -(photo: Di Li) The guy with the dark glasses I took with him was a street vendor, making our whole group bewildered because he looked like a Hollywood actor. He offered to buy goods, I stood dumbfounded because he asked in turn in English, French, German, Italian to see if I knew what language I could speak, so I would communicate in that language. Indian men are actually the gentlest of the countries I’ve been to, and even the salesmen are often humble and poor. Even scolded did not dare to react. In Vietnam, if you scold, you will be beaten back. I used to travel across North India and a few times to New Delhi, traveling all by myself but still safe, and not being watched by anyone as people say. India is one of the world’s earliest philosophies, the cradle of culture, architecture and art, one of which is Buddha. The world’s richest people and the world’s best playboys are also concentrated in India. In 2018, the daughter of tycoon Mukesh Ambani got married (Ambani is the richest person in Asia and the fourth in the world with a fortune of 40 billion USD, even surpassing Bill Gates in one year), the money for mosaic wedding invitations alone. encrusted, calculated in Vietnamese currency has cost hundreds of billion. The price of extremism But unfortunately, India is an extreme country, in this place it seems that there are only two concepts. Either very nice or very ugly. Either extremely gentle and shy, or extremely aggressive and perverted. Either very clean or extremely dirty. Either extremely intellectual or illiterate. Either so rich or so poor that they can’t afford firewood for cremation. Either extremely civilized or extremely backward (so much so that now many villages still maintain the custom of widows burning themselves with their husbands). Either extreme meditation, peaceful mind and body (the birthplace of Yoga), or extreme lust (also the birthplace of Kama Sutra). The landscape is extremely cold (the Himalayas) and extremely hot (the Great Indian desert). The food is either amazing (just brought to the mouth, must be spit out) or extremely delicious. India has the most luxurious hotels in the world for guests to stay there as ecstatic as the land of ecstasy and there are also slums that are considered as hell on earth. All this polarization is due to the five caste system that has persisted in India from BC until now. If someone is dirty, ugly, poor, illiterate, or ignorant, their descendants will be passed down for hundreds of generations. But it’s very rare like other countries that from a shoe shine boy to become a billionaire, from the son of an illiterate mother who can become a scientist, from a hired dishwasher to become a beauty queen, from unacknowledged adopted son to deputy prime minister. In India, the monks and nuns sweep banyan leaves, and there are rare cases of jumping from one caste to another. Most of the time, trying to come up, they were drowned so they couldn’t open their eyes. So the tourism slogan given by India itself is as true as they claim to be “Incredible India”. Covid-19 when it came to India it was also weird according to this country, it mutated and increased virulence, and of course it excluded the rich. Because the rich, they take a private plane to the Maldives or Dubai to stay in a 6-star resort to avoid illness, when the epidemic is over, they will return. They sunbathe, shop for diamonds, drink cocktails under the stars at night and post pictures on Facebook. If you are poor, you will suffer everywhere, whether East or West, whether Buddhist or Christian, feudal or modern, hierarchical society or democratic equality. When something happens in the country, war, coup, epidemic, economic crisis, natural disaster, climate change, the poor receive enough. They are the most vulnerable in society. And India has many poor people. No matter how high GDP is, it is only in the hands of the billionaire elite. On the 7th of last year, I was still in India. At that time, seeing the news at home, they rushed to buy masks but sold out, so the last day the group went to the market not to buy any gifts but just bought a bunch of masks to bring back. The Indians found that very strange, shrugging their shoulders in surprise because at that time there were no cases in India. But at that time I said: If Covid-19 spread to India, the whole country will be infected, the number of cases will lead the world. The poet Nguyet Vu who accompanied me later kept saying that my words were… prophetic. Poor thing, it’s not a prophecy, India is always full of people every day, it looks like a Zombie movie, it’s strange that it’s not infected. The world keeps scolding India for not locking down. But they couldn’t do that. Thousands of Indians still bathe in the Ganges River in Haridwar during the Kumbh Mela festival despite the Covid-19 epidemic Firstly, India has many of the world’s leading religious festivals. People die right next to them how they do not know, but still several tens of thousands of Indians bathe together during the religious festival of Kumbh Mela. No one wants to wear a mask. They poured water on them from the Ganges River, then buried their faces in the viscous cow dung and told the gods to help them. They would rather die from Covid-19 but definitely refuse to give up their pilgrimage. The Prime Minister also cannot ban the festival because the power of the Brahmin priests here is supreme (Is the first of the 5 castes). Called the king’s magic to lose to the village rules. Our festivals also gather as many people as in India, but the Party and Government ask people to stay at home right away, and the whole country listens. Countries that have prided themselves on long-standing democracies can’t do that. Because the people above told them not to listen, people also scolded for more, not to mention asking people to declare and trace Covid-19. In the epidemic situation, this is called the other side of democracy. Mr. Ram Vriksha Gaur, one of the directors of the popular TV series “8-year-old bride” went bankrupt due to the epidemic, had to sell vegetables and fruits. Second, India’s poverty rate is very high. If the blockade, it is likely that the number of people starving to death is higher than dying from Covid-19. For example, Ram Vriksha Gaur, one of the directors of “8-Year-Old Bride”. The epidemic made him bankrupt, so he had to drive a car to sell vegetables. It is not surprising that the Indian variant of Covid will spread to the whole world, especially Africa. At that time, it was normal for middle-class people to go bankrupt. So if you guys go away for a holiday, don’t wear a mask during the trip, come home and hide from the declaration, then carry your body around and go out in contact with other people, then only the poor will hurt the most. Because if the epidemic breaks out, the poor will not be able to sell baskets of vegetables and fruits. According to media reports, if vaccinated diligently, it will also take India … 10 years to fully vaccinate more than 1 billion of their people. The story of India makes me see nothing too optimistic about the current Covid-19 situation. Because the first logic is that only when the vaccine is given enough around the world, travel between countries will be completely free. As long as there is still a country with Covid-19, it will spread back and forth, even adding new strains for which a vaccine will not solve the problem. The second logic is that the land border between countries (except for the island countries) is often open for hundreds of kilometers, the whole field is not empty, so it is normal to spread each other. Now India, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia are considered defeated. Soon it will be Nepal’s turn to fall, a country with a high population density, poor health care, poor sanitation and unfortunately shares a very long border with India. If anything happens, the outcome could be even worse than India, because they are much poorer than India, traffic is no different from Indiana Jones movies, it is difficult to get aid and supplies. This is really heartbreaking because these are the two countries that I love the most.

Rakesh and Dakshina invited 161 guests to their wedding ceremony on the plane. Rakesh and Dakshina, from Madurai, India decided to get married, but due to restrictions and regulations to prevent the Covid-19 epidemic, the couple came up with the idea of ​​​​having a wedding ceremony on an airplane. The couple made this a reality when chartering a plane and holding a wedding ceremony on a flight from Madurai to Bangalore on May 23. The flight took off from Madurai International Airport at 7 a.m., although the guest list far exceeded the state government’s limit for maximum gatherings at an event. The video shows the flight filled with guests as the couple stood in front of the aisle and performed the ceremony. The groom can be seen placing a traditional ornament around the bride’s neck while attendees cheer and toss flowers at them. The flight was packed with people. Rakesh and Dakshina officially performed the ceremony as soon as the plane flew over Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple. After the wedding on the plane, the couple went to a hotel in Bangalore for a small reception. All passengers on board, who are their relatives, have had RT-PCR tests and tested negative. However, many guests chose not to wear masks and did not keep a safe distance. The police have received information about the incident and are considering whether to open an investigation into violations of regulations on prevention of the Covid-19 epidemic.

The effectiveness of the vaccine so far cannot be denied. The United States, although not widely open to the world, has dragged down its number of infections in just the past few months. Based on data collected during vaccination, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced that the effectiveness of major vaccines such as Pfizer or Moderna is up to 95%. even with new variants. This makes it possible for American people to comfortably go out without having to wear a mask, while the US Government considers lifting the ban on international movement. Similar effects have also been observed in Israel and Europe, where vaccination rates have reached 60% – that is, herd immunity can be generated. The “miracle” that brought life back to its normal rhythm seemed to be at last. Small doses of vaccines are becoming the hope of the whole world in the fight against COVID. However, at the same time, a new wave of infections broke out in India. Since mid-April, an additional 5 million new infections have been recorded in this South Asian country. The number of new infections continuously reached approximately 300 thousand cases per day, of which several thousand people died from the disease every day. The epidemic tsunami was so great that it knocked down India’s health system in just a few days, a real disaster. It is hard to believe, until the 4th wave of infections broke out, India was the country with the 3rd highest number of COVID vaccines in the world and was a hope for the whole world thanks to its huge vaccine supply. However, the number of nearly 100 million doses of vaccine administered out of a population of 1.3 billion is still too small to achieve a state of herd immunity, as epidemiologists hope. The government’s subjectivity then caused the contagion to erupt violently at a time when major religious ceremonies were held in this huge country. Consequences for the people and country of India so far have not been fully enumerated, but more dangerous, it is slowing down the whole world’s efforts to open up, when the supply of vaccines is mainly for people. Poor countries under the WHO COVAX program have stalled, because India has urgently applied a ban on vaccine exports to save itself first. In addition, the fourth wave of infections has also begun to spread around the world, from Asia, Africa to South America, where vaccination rates are far from reaching the thresholds that can create health problems. herd immunity. No one can stand alone The Indians cannot be blamed for the decision to close the vaccine supply at this time, because indeed the images and death figures every day in the newspaper make anyone horrified. Before that, it was India that took the lead in efforts to help the poorer people to have access to 66 million doses of vaccine in the first quarter of this year. Now that responsibility needs to be reinforced. In contrast, the US, UK, EU and Israel have come up with plans to reopen. Learning from India’s mistakes, these countries have been more cautious. From May 23, tourists can return to Israel and the EU if they comply with the mandatory conditions. The problem is that if that rule is followed, there are not many qualified guests. Because, in addition to having received the correct vaccines recognized by the EU, that traveler must also be from countries with the number of new infections below 25 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the previous 14 days. Those are the countries that the EU calls “safe”. However, there are currently only 7 countries outside the EU that meet this criterion, such as Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, etc., but that list does not include the US. That is, the invitation to travel to Europe is still only “give it up”. The door was opened but very few people could enter. The “Indian lesson” makes us realize that vaccination speed will determine the success or failure of a global vaccine strategy. As the United States and Israel quickly immunized the majority of the population, the SARS-CoV-2 virus was easily defeated. But, the drip vaccination rate will not be enough to create herd immunity and even allow the virus to mutate against the same old vaccines. Finding a vaccine for the poor is never easy. The fourth wave of contagion, therefore, has broken out in these very countries, with new variants that are more dangerous and could completely hit countries that already have high vaccination rates. Therefore, in order to solve the problem at the root, it is the rich countries that will have to take the lead in a new effort, to rescue the worldwide shortage of vaccines. Conflicts of interest A group of 13 countries has been identified by the World Bank (WB) as holding control and global distribution of vaccines. Among these, there are of course big countries like India, China, Russia, the G7 group and a few other European countries like Austria, Switzerland, Sweden. They are collectively known with a beautiful name, “The Club of Vaccine Producing Countries”. This club controls up to 88% of vaccines and 91% of vaccine companies in the world. Among them, mainly developed countries in the West. It is not surprising that the US and EU have achieved the highest vaccination rates in the world in a short time. Despite earlier claims to share vaccines with the world, “vaccine nationalism” prevailed initially. They have even started to have an oversupply of vaccine in their inventory after the last 3 months of intense vaccination. Therefore, when making the call for the rescue of vaccines in the world, both WHO and the United Nations are directly targeting this group of countries. Now it’s time for them to extend their hand to play the role of “saving the world”. However, this is also the time when the controversy broke out the most. The US has announced that it will deliver 70 million doses of its vaccine to developing countries between now and July. The EU will also contribute back to the COVAX program, after a temporary withdrawal to keep the vaccine for itself. But, even so, it’s still not enough. Because the most advanced vaccines being used by the US and EU require extremely complex preservation technologies that are not easy for poor or developing countries to meet. In Africa, hundreds of thousands of doses of vaccines have been destroyed, even though they still have their expiry date, because they cannot guarantee the storage conditions on the way to users. This situation may be even more serious, when the number of vaccines from the EU and the US is brought in in large numbers in the near future. And the cost of high-end vaccines like Pfizer or Moderna is never cheap, when Pfizer – BioNtech or Moderna apply the most advanced technologies that not even Russia or China have access to. A new call has been made, for rich countries to share vaccine copyrights with poor countries, in order to create a vaccine that suits them. However, advanced genetic technologies are copyrighted by major pharmaceutical companies, where they want to hold the secret not only for this COVID vaccine. As a result, the controversy has shifted from the states to the people of the vaccine-hungry poor countries, with the wealthy owners of the big pharmaceutical companies. Loss of motivation to research to find new products is the reason that big pharmaceutical companies rely on to protect their patents. Meanwhile, inequality in vaccine distribution has serious consequences for the lives of hundreds of millions of other people. Still, it wasn’t easy for those wealthy owners to give in. Therefore, before relying on the “kindness” of pharmaceutical companies, the most concrete thing that rich countries can do is probably just to try to fill this inequality by giving poor countries the opportunity to do so. access to their starting surplus vaccine resources. Saving people is actually saving yourself.
Tu Uyen

Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging app icon. Photo: AFP/VNA MEITy’s new rules require major social media platforms like WhatsApp to “trace” the origin of specific messages sent on the messaging service. However, according to a WhatsApp spokesperson, asking messaging apps to trace chats is equivalent to asking WhatsApp to track every single message sent on the app. This would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally compromise user privacy. The spokesperson stressed that along with civil society and experts around the world, WhatsApp has always opposed requests to violate user privacy, but the application is owned by this social network Facebook. We will also continue to work with the Government of India to find practical solutions to keep everyone safe, including responding to valid legal requests for the information WhatsApp makes available. Earlier, the press reported that social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Google and Twitter could face legal action in India if they do not comply with a new regulation by the government to strengthen control. control of intermediary platforms, effective May 26. Failure to comply with the above provisions will result in the social media networks being stripped of their intermediary platform status and immunity and will face criminal action under Indian law. The above regulations also require social media companies to appoint a resident grievance officer, regulatory compliance officer and basic contact person, as well as to disclose detailed information about the company. details of these people on their website, along with physical contact addresses. The regulation also requires traceability of the originator of the message and includes a provision for voluntary verification as a way to establish user identity.

The school has an oval shape made from local sandstone. Located in the Thar desert in northern India, Rajkumari Ratnavati Girls School is for 400 girls between the ages of 5 and 16. Diana Kellogg Architects explains that they sought out symbols of femininity and the nearby dunes to create a fortress-like structure that could blend in and grow with the landscape. “As an architect who designs for women, I have considered feminine symbols across cultures and especially symbols of strength,” architect Diana Kellogg tells WebMD. Dezeen . “I ended up choosing this oval shape – representing femininity and representing infinity.” Built of locally sourced hand-carved sandstone, this 836-square-foot fortress-like structure consists of three circular sections. An outer wall surrounds the perimeter of the school, an inner wall surrounds the classrooms and an oval courtyard. The courtyard is in the center of the school and corresponds to the surrounding walls. Parts of the stone wall have been perforated to cool the space and block the sun. “I wanted the school’s design to give shade to the girls in the courtyard. I’ve reduced the width so we can have a canopy cover the open space during the hot months. The ellipse seems to be the most natural way to do this. The circle is familiar to craftsmen because the fortress structure is a series of circular shapes.” Wooden doors lead from the courtyard to the computer center and the 10 classrooms are connected by a series of winding corridors. Ventilation holes in the classroom create a light effect throughout the day and allow for natural ventilation. A ramp between the perforated walls forms a shaded corridor that leads to an elevated walkway to the roof. Perforated balustrades surround the outside of the walkway increasing the height. Its design is a reinterpretation of Jali nets, traditionally used to provide privacy. Blue mosaic tiled floors span the walkway, adding a bright and cool contrast against the yellow stone background. “Effective design is a process that requires a deep understanding of the history of a place – its culture, topography, and vernacular. I wanted to build a building about space, light and community, not about design – a structure that resonates with the soul and harnesses the energy of nature to nurture and heal women and children. sister.” Diana Kellogg Architects oriented the building to maximize the breeze entering the school’s elliptical shape that could passively cool the building. The company also incorporates water harvesting systems to collect and recycle rainwater throughout the school. The solar panels that power the lights and fans are mounted into a steel structure on the roof, which acts as a shady canopy and play area for the children. “I came up with the idea of ​​a solar roof on the roof of the building – which also acts as a kind of jungle gym with seesaws and swings.” The school is a construction project commissioned by the non-profit organization CITTA that aims to equip and support communities around the world. Diana Kellogg will also design two other buildings next to the school. It will feature performance, exhibition, museum and library spaces, as well as a cooperative teaching women’s embroidery and weaving techniques.

This unique dish is called Paan, or many others are Fire Paan, appearing in India since 1972, ie, it has existed for more than 49 years now. To make Paan, the Indians used a very familiar ingredient in Vietnam, betel leaf. After being cleaned, betel leaves are placed on top of a mixture of spices, mukhwas (dill seeds coated with colorful sugar), dried fruit, and sugar. After the spice mixture is added, people will roll the betel leaf, or leave it as is, and pin some dried cloves and then burn it with fire. The fire only turns on the gas, so there is no need to prepare anything complicated. And after the fire has burned enough, the seller will quickly roll the burning betel leaf into the customer’s mouth. This is a sight not for the faint-hearted. However, Indians consider this a common thing because they are used to this dish, even they are addicted, so sometimes they have to wait in long lines to buy. Surely many of you will wonder if putting fire in your mouth like that is hot or burning? The heat is of course there, but maybe only to the extent that the body can withstand it, but it doesn’t cause burns because the fire after entering the mouth will turn off immediately. The most obvious evidence is that almost everyone who enjoys this dish is unharmed, on the contrary, they feel delicious and want to enjoy it again and again. In particular, according to recorded documents, this Paan dish in India is also considered a cure for many diseases such as coughs, colds and headaches, in addition, this dish also helps freshen breath and increase blood pressure. strengthen health. A Paan shop owner in India shared: “ Some people get scared as soon as they see this dish for the first time. But they all try once. It doesn’t have any side effects and it’s very safe and won’t hurt anyone “.

Currently, tourists from India can stay in isolated resorts and are not allowed on islands inhabited by locals. But this is still the largest group of tourists in the archipelago since late July last year, after the Maldives reopened its international borders. The archipelago is located in the south of India, only about 2-3 hours by flight from the country. Thoyyib Mohamed, head of the Maldives’ tourism authority, told AFP : “The scattered geographical position of the small islands helps us to minimize the risk of spreading the virus on a large scale.” In addition to Dubai, the Maldives is the place where the rich in India are flocking to flee the dangerous situation at home. Photo: Shutterstock. “Many small islands are isolated, self-contained resorts. If a new case appears, the government is still able to control and isolate sick people in the resort, preventing pathogens from creeping out.” , Mr. Thoyyib added. Maldives is also conducting a campaign to vaccinate against Covid-19 for all 50,000 people in the country working in the fields of tourism, commercial services and hotels. In the other direction, many Indian actors and celebrities face an angry public reaction when they still carelessly show their photos to the Maldives to escape the epidemic and relax. Ranbir Kapoor and his girlfriend left India in the middle of the epidemic season and posted pictures of enjoying a vacation. Photo: Nzerald. On April 19, Ranbir Kapoor – the 6th highest paid actor in Bollywood – shared a picture of himself and his girlfriend Alia Bhatt leaving the country, with the caption “Maldives beckoning me”. Similarly, another pair of Bollywood stars, Disha Patani and Tiger Shroff, showed off photos of enjoying the Maldives in a 5-star resort. Below the comment section, a series of objections, criticizing the insensitivity of the rich class. Many other celebrities in the Indian showbiz also condemned the act of showing off their wealth at this time as offensive and inappropriate. In addition to Dubai, the Maldives is a place where many rich Indians flee to escape the epidemic by private planes at expensive costs. Demand for private jet charters has skyrocketed, with many people pooling money in a shared charter to quickly leave the country. Over the past several days, the number of new Covid-19 cases in India has continuously reached a world record. On April 30, India continued to record 408,331 new infections, bringing the total number of Covid-19 cases in this country to 19 million.

Two weeks ago, just as dawn broke over the Ganges, a riverside resident discovered several bodies drifting into the shallows of the river most sacred to Indians. Darsan Nishad – a 35-year-old man working for a local environmental program – pulled the eight bodies out of the water. He then tied these bodies with sacks to take them away to check the cause of death. Finally, the unfortunate victims will be cremated – according to Hindu rites. “We don’t know where these bodies come from. We didn’t even know if they had any diseases,” said Nishad, pointing to the area where he and his colleagues had to carry out this difficult task. Hindus make offerings to the sacred Ganges River after scattering the ashes of their loved ones. Hundreds of bodies were found floating or buried in the river in May. Photo: Washington Post. Saddened by the experience, Nishad shared his belief in the Ganges, which Hindus revere as a sacred river. According to Hindu beliefs, anyone who has bathed in the river will be cleansed of all sins. “The river has great spiritual significance to us. Indians believe that if you dip yourself in this water even once, you will be protected for life,” said Nishad, standing a few feet from the crematorium in the river. “For us, the river is the goddess,” said Nishad. This is just a small number of hundreds of other bodies floating or buried in sand along the length of the river in the context that India suffered the second worst consequences in the world because of the Covid-19 pandemic. after America. Worried fisherman The mystery surrounding the bodies remains unanswered. Authorities have not been able to find out how many people have Covid-19 among those bodies. Many believe that some families have opted for extreme measures – dropping the bodies of loved ones in the Ganges – because they cannot afford to cremate them. Before the second wave of Covid-19 “swallowed” India, the cremation rite cost only 70 USD. However, the number has now risen to more than $400 – almost six times higher – since the end of April. In Sujabad – a large community that depends on the Ganges for a living – many people are currently without work. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused the loss of jobs for river boaters carrying pilgrims and tourists. With bodies constantly dropping into the river causing pollution, local fishermen are worried about their catch and fish stocks being affected. For many people, the source of fish on the sacred river has been a way of life for a long time. The Indian crematorium burns day and night. Photo: New York Times. According to people here, the most prosperous business at this time is providing wood for the crematorium. As of May 23, India recorded more than 26.2 million cases of Covid-19 and more than 295,000 deaths. The number of new infections per day in India has recently decreased, but the average number of deaths in the past 7 days has remained high, above 4,000 people per day. The “tsunami” of Covid-19 has put the Indian economy on the brink of collapse. Like the bodies found in the Ganges – whether they died from coronavirus, heart attacks or old age – residents of communities like Sujabad are falling victim to this virus. Government gets involved Images of floating bodies prompted authorities to step in. Patrol ships are deployed across more than 2,400 kilometers of the Ganges River. State and local governments have established a network of free cremation sites – providing firewood and inviting priests to perform Masses for families who cannot afford it. Hundreds of such crematoriums have been opened across Varanasi, the holy city on the banks of the Ganges in Uttar Pradesh state, and home to a series of steps leading down to the Ganges (called ghats). Usually, Hindus will gather in large numbers at ghats to bathe, baptize their children and scatter the ashes of the dead. However, now the ghats are uninhabited, while the crematoriums operate continuously day and night. In downtown Varanasi, officials have set up a Covid-19 “command center”. Here, thousands of staff will take calls from residents, check on patients, order ambulances for those in need of hospitalization and arrange cremation services. A large screen hung on the wall continuously displays the latest information on the number of hospital beds, oxygen supply and the number of new infections. Government employees patrol the Ganges River. Photo: Washington Post. Share with Washington Post , cleric Satindra Kumar in Varanasi could not hide his fatigue after long days of performing funeral rites. “I have performed the funeral rite 15 times in the past two days, most of the dead are patients with corona virus. People who don’t die from the disease also come here,” Kumar said. “The pandemic is so devastating! Everyone is afraid and suffering. I cannot stop what is happening, but I will continue to pray. I hope that will bring peace to the relatives of the deceased.” Even the poor still have to celebrate However, in rural areas, there is no similar service for the family of someone who has died of Covid-19 or other causes. Despite the extra cost, many people still make trips to the ghats to pray for their loved ones in accordance with Hindu custom. They believe that even with the added economic burden on their shoulders, they still have to bear to follow the ancestral traditions. Journalist of Washington Post witnessed a group of peasants reach out to one of Varanasi’s oldest ghats to perform funerals for three loved ones. Cremation platforms along the riverside. Photo: Getty. They prepare offerings consisting of pellets and spices, wrapped in large leaves under the supervision of a Hindu priest. After the bodies of three loved ones were blessed, the men stepped off the ghats, floated their offerings in the river, and began scattering the ashes. After that, besides the cremation fee, the group also had to pay the ceremony money for the ceremony just now. They anxiously counted every penny they had accumulated, plus the costs of barbers, photographers and gifts. They do not hesitate to pay expensive expenses to fulfill their religious obligations at a time of uncertainty, fear of an invisible and deadly force. “For generations, villagers have come here to perform the last rites of life,” said Lakshmi Singh, a farmer in his 60s. Bringing the ashes of unclaimed Covid-19 victims to the Ganges River Indian volunteers collect ashes from crematoriums to organize funerals for Covid-19 victims in Haridwar city.

According to Bloomberg, Asia’s richest billionaire Mukesh Ambani has just bought another property in the United Kingdom through Relliance Industries, which he controls. Stoke Park Castle is considered an iconic property in England. This deal is estimated to cost the Indian billionaire £57 million (about $79 million). Photo: Stoke Park. With a fortune of $71.9 billion, Mr. Mukesh Ambani is currently the richest person in Asia and the 13th richest person in the world, according to Forbes. The Ambani family is also known for their lavish lifestyle and willingness to spend heavily on housing, security as well as fashion. Photo: Stoke Park. Stoke Park is an icon of England, with a history of more than 1,000 years, according to Forbes. The property is located on an area of ​​120 hectares (300 acres), about 40 km from the city of London. Photo: Stoke Park. Inside the castle includes a five-star hotel, three restaurants, a guest lounge, spa room, gym, 13 tennis courts and a 27-hole golf course for major tournaments. Photo: Stoke Park. The gym area in the castle has a 15-meter heated indoor swimming pool. In addition, the castle also has 13 tennis courts including 6 grass courts, 3 indoor courts and 4 artificial clay courts. Photo: Stoke Park. Stoke Park has appeared in scenes from James Bond movies and many other films. It is also home to the annual Boodles tennis event, which brings together many of the world’s top tennis players such as Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic. Photo: Stoke Park. The same 27-hole Stoke Park golf tournament has been maintained since 1908. Photo: Stoke Park. The 5-star hotel in the castle has a luxurious, nostalgic royal style. Photo: Stoke Park. The hotel in Stoke Park has 49 rooms with prices ranging from 265 – 1,030 USD/night. A representative of Relliance Industries said that it will expand the entertainment and resort facilities of Stoke Park in the future. Photo: Stoke Park.

Before Covid-19 appeared, the Ganges River was once “flooded with corpses”. In 1918, when an influenza pandemic swept through India and killed an estimated 18 million people, the river’s waters filled with the smell of rotting corpses. This creepy scene is making a comeback because of a pandemic. The official death toll in India is reported to be more than 250,000, but experts say the real number is five times higher, according to Guardians. These bodies began to wash up on the banks of the sacred river, becoming a haunting symbol for the uncounted Covid-19 deaths. According to the Economist , these images also reveal the picture of Indian society with poor people struggling to cope with the pandemic and make a living. Relatives and relatives carry the body of a person who died of Covid-19 to be buried on the banks of the Ganges River. Photo: Shutterstock. No one sells firewood to cremate relatives On May 19, India continued to set a new record for the number of deaths in a day due to Covid-19: 4,529 people. This is the highest number of daily Covid-19 deaths of any country ever, surpassing the previous record in the US with 4,475 deaths in a day. To date, India has recorded more than 25 million cases and 275,000 deaths from Covid-19. However, there are no official statistics on the number of bodies discovered in the past two weeks in the open stretch of the Ganges that flows through the poor rural states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, or buried in shallow sandy graves along the riverbanks. in Uttar Pradesh. Through statistics, locals and journalists here put the number of more than 2,000 bodies. In the village of Gahmar in Uttar Pradesh, 15-year-old Raju Chaudhry, who works on a fishing boat, said he had recently seen “about 50 bodies being washed away every day, for many days”. There is no way to know if these people have Covid-19 or not, although Indian authorities have acknowledged some of the bodies as those who died from the pandemic. According to official figures released by the government, the death and infection rate of Covid-19 in Gahmar village is low. But Bhupendra Upadhyay, a priest here, said a lot of people have died in the past few weeks. Earthen vases hang from a banyan tree by the Ganges River in the village of Gahmar, each representing a person who has just died. Photo: Guardian. “I saw 30 to 35 bodies being brought into the river recently and drowned here. Many people drop dead bodies in the river because they have difficulty arranging cremation, because there are so many dead people,” he said. Upadhyay pointed to the trunk of the banyan tree where he was sitting. On the trunk, dozens of earthen pots are tied up. “Each of those vases represents a deceased person. Let’s see how many, just from the last 10 days,” he said. In the case of Shambhu Nath, his family had no difficulty in cremation, as villagers helped and attended the funeral. But after the second brother in the family died of Covid-19, they found themselves abandoned by their neighbors. “When we tried to buy firewood for our cremation, we were chased away. No one in the village could help us with the cremation because they suspected we had Covid-19. We couldn’t get the wood and didn’t know what else to do. , so we had to drown his body in the river. We did it at 11am the next morning, and only a close family came to offer condolences,” he said. What do corpses in the Ganges reveal? Sheet Economist An assessment of India’s covid-19 crisis, with images of corpses floating in the Ganges, reveals two things. One is the scale of the tragedy sweeping across the vast territory of India. In remote rural areas, far from city clinics, people are not being tested for Covid-19. Therefore, no cases or deaths were recorded. The officially published death toll is now a fraction of the true number. Economist identify. The second thing that the bodies in the Ganges reveal is that this wave of Covid-19 is ravaging the lives of the poor, who are already struggling to make ends meet. The poor are losing their jobs, starving to eat and falling victim to scams. Jammu and Kashmir State Disaster Response Force soldiers carry empty coffins to transport the bodies of people who died of Covid-19 on May 19. Photo: AP. “People borrow money to pay for medicines, or oxygen tanks, or pay extra fees for ambulance drivers because they have to carry Covid-19 patients. So they can’t afford to pay for cremation or funeral. ceremony,” Utpal Pathak, a local journalist, told Economist. After the first wave of Covid-19 swept through India in 2020, many local newspapers and research institutes tried to calculate the economic impact of the pandemic on the poor. Pew Research Institute estimates that as of January 2020, only 4.3% of Indians earn less than $2. A year later, that number had increased to 9.7%, or 134 million people. In-depth research by Azim Premji University in Bangalore shows that after the 2020 nationwide lockdown, about 230 million Indians slipped below the poverty line, which is set based on the minimum wage (about $45 a month). ). The university researchers also found that during the lockdown, 90% of the poor consumed less food. Six months later, their diets still haven’t returned to normal. In the past year, the income of Indian workers, including the lucky 10% who have a salaried job, has fallen by a third, according to the report. Economist. Shocked by the terrible impact of the pandemic and the blockade order in 2020, this year, the central government of India let the state and local governments to impose the blockade order on their own based on the actual situation. “Although the economy has not yet come to a complete standstill, the scale of this outbreak still leaves many families devastated.” Economist write. A worker helps cremate a body on the banks of the Ganges River. Photo: Getty. For many people, the biggest shock is the loss of family breadwinners. The Indian railway company has 1.2 million employees, but Covid-19 killed 1,952 employees here. In April, the state of Uttar Pradesh dispatched 1.2 million civil servants to work on local elections and counting votes. Report of Economist said this election was the cause of the large-scale outbreak. It is estimated that about 2,000 of the aforementioned civil servants died afterward, including 800 teachers. Each of those deaths cost their families weeks of grief and expensive treatment. Not to mention each person who died could have infected and made 20 others seriously ill. “In a normal year, one in 20 families is pushed into poverty due to high medical costs. What has happened in the last two months is understandable. Millions of wonderful Indian families Hope was forced to sell gold, pawn or borrow money. Economist write. In times of poverty, people are vulnerable to a variety of scams, such as healthcare workers demanding bribes to secure hospital admissions, purchasing counterfeit drugs, or even in some states, painted scams. on fire extinguishers to sell as oxygen tanks. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, who has been promoting an herbal “cure” for Covid-19, last week advised Indians to eat more dark chocolate with “more than 70% cocoa” to beat the stress of the pandemic. . Bringing the ashes of unclaimed Covid-19 victims to the Ganges River Indian volunteers collect ashes from crematoriums to organize funerals for Covid-19 victims in Haridwar city.

Glamor Magazine believes that wearing skirts over pants will become a trend. In Vietnam, some young people started to follow this fashion. Many people believe that this way of dressing comes from Japan and India. Not only tight pants as before, now fashionistas also wear skirts with loose pants. Photo: Littledot Bag. Khanh Van used to wear this style. The actress chose a thin, see-through skirt to wear with wide-leg jeans. This helps the outfit look less hot in the summer. Photo: Clouds. Overseas, Gigi Hadid is a fashion star who wears skirts and pants at the same time. Attending fashion events, supermodels have a rather sophisticated way of dressing. She wore a long blazer, a pleated skirt with a high split to reveal well-tailored, elegantly colored pants. High heels are the perfect choice because it helps the Hadid beauties not be sloppy. Photo: Getty. In fact, the above style of dress has been applied by fashion houses on the catwalk for a long time. Beyond that range, the combination of long skirts with pants is gradually becoming popular, especially among artists and fashionistas. In some typical Indian cultures, girls also often wear pants and skirts at the same time. Photo: Who What Wear, The Fashion Spot. Writer Hannah Tappin believes that people should not choose a skirt that is too long because it hides the inner pants and makes the outfit look heavy. Photo: Faye Ellaby. Some fashion brands suggest wearing a long shirt with simple fabric pants. They choose outfits of the same color. Photo: Glamor Magazine.

But these days, traffic is sparse, with only occasional trucks or motorbikes passing by. The once noisy atmosphere no longer appeared. Unpleasant silence crept across India as the COVID-19 crisis erupted, partly due to local closures of factories, and partly because many people here fear infection. Contrary to that quiet, fighting activities are increasingly explosive: ambulances race to the next patient, ordinary people frantically criss-crossing the city in search of medicine, oxygen, and beds sick. After a year of relative calm, the country of nearly 1.4 billion people is grappling with a powerful last-minute storm. With the number of new cases still exceeding 300,000 per day, India regularly accounts for around 50% of all new cases worldwide. Vijayawada International Airport was bustling with only a handful of passengers, and flights were also few. (Photo: ST) Problems from tests At the end of April, in the corner of the Artemis hospital compound in Gurgaon, a man repeatedly fell and had to be helped by those around him as he stood in line waiting for an RT-PCR test. The man was seated in a chair but collapsed. He was brought to the front of the queue but was too weak to last long. As hospital staff led the man toward the main building, he resisted, pointing to an elderly man sitting in the corner. Turns out this person came here not to do an RT-PCR test for himself but for his father. Meanwhile, at the front, the doctor in charge, overwhelmed by the number of samples to be taken, shouted at a patient for breaking in. Most people in line will wait at least two hours to be checked in. And it takes at least 48 hours to get results. Crowds of testing people create congestion at facilities. (Photo: ST) Unlike the first wave that affected the elderly, the second wave made many young people sick. Middle-aged parents have to bring children with coughs and fevers to testing centers. Prolonged delays have unfortunate consequences. Without quick and reliable test results, people won’t be able to get the care they need and could end up passing the virus on to many others. Mr. Claudien Jacob understood the situation all too well. He lost his 71-year-old mother on April 29 at home in Bangalore, when she was bedridden. She was hot with fever and her oxygen saturation level gradually decreased. By the time they were able to have a lab technician come to their home to collect an RT-PCR sample, other household members had also developed typical symptoms of COVID-19. But without the test, she wouldn’t have a hospital bed. On April 29, at 7 a.m., she took her last breath. At 7:30 a.m., Mr. Jacob’s phone beeped with her test result: positive. He has yet to receive his test results. “I’m dead tired, but no one else is doing this, so I went to the cemetery. I still haven’t had time to feel that my mother is dead.” A grieving family sends off a loved one who died of COVID-19 while keeping their distance. (Photo: ST) In March 2020, during the first pandemic outbreak, India instituted a strict 21-day lockdown. While bad for the economy, this also helps expand infrastructure from hospital beds to testing facilities. The number of tests has been increased from less than 100 to more than 1.4 million per day. The number of labs doing testing has also increased from 14 at the beginning of last year to more than 2,400 this year. But that’s still not enough. Survival battle Now, it’s common for Indians to see people rushing to find the basic necessities that were always assumed hospitals would have. Never before have citizens had to hunt for oxygen as often as they do now. Looking out the window, it’s not difficult to see someone rushing with an oxygen tank on the car to bring to the patient. Hospitalization – is a matter of will, wealth, relationships and of course luck. Indians now joke that before the pandemic, people panicked when a loved one was taken to the hospital’s intensive care unit, but now they’re happy. The journey to getting a bed is like a competitive sport. Common scene on Indian streets. (Photo: ST) Survival is not easy either. People safe from COVID-19 and their families talk about loneliness and stress. Families are not allowed to see patients in COVID-19 wards or intensive care units. In absolute isolation, all one could hear was the single, heavy breathing. But anyway, they are still considered “lucky” people. Coping with trauma Outside the Old Seemapuri crematorium in Delhi, Jitender Singh Shunty, founder of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal – a non-profit organization – drinks his first tea at 2pm. He said he felt like fainting and had to rest despite having very little time. Mr. Shunty helped cremate unclaimed bodies and dispose of the ashes in the Hindu tradition, receiving many calls. “Yes, we will come and prepare for the funeral. Don’t worry”, he told a desperate person on the phone. He received more than 400 calls a day, and lived in the car for days. He has a fleet of 18 ambulances and has lost one driver, Arif Khan, to the pandemic. These two were rejected by 4 hospitals in one day. (Photo: ST) Ordinary men and women have become superheroes during the pandemic. A driver in Bhopal sells his wife’s jewelry to convert the car into a makeshift ambulance. Another person in Mumbai sells his SUV for 2.2 million rupees to buy oxygen tanks for everyone. In Kerala, an elderly man donated almost all of his savings of Rs 200,000 to COVID-19 relief efforts. A nursing mother in Bangalore donates breast milk to a premature baby whose mother has died from the epidemic. And it is these moments that are a temporary respite from the horror that is unfolding. A nurse cares for a child who has recently recovered from COVID-19. (Photo: ST)

An estimate of the number of daily excess deaths from Covid-19 around the world. Photo: The Economist In the year to 8 May, South Africa recorded 158,499 excess deaths (deaths that were higher than estimated under previous trends due to demographic changes). Health officials are confident that 85-95% of these deaths are caused by the new strain of corona virus, which is almost three times the official statistics. The disparity stems from the fact that, for a death to be recognized as caused by SARS-CoV-2, the deceased needs to undergo testing and be confirmed. Although South Africa does more testing than its neighbors, rates are still low. And the cause of death is not fully documented for those who die at home. Common phenomenon Mortality rates that exceed official statistics, at least at some point during the pandemic, occur in most if not all of the world. According to the most recent data, the number of excess deaths in the US was 7.1% higher than official statistics between early March 2020 and mid-April 2021. Studies have discovered such a mismatch in several countries. For example, the UK saw an excess death rate that was higher than published in the first wave of infections, but lower in the second, reflecting how measures to contain the spread of the virus helped. save many lives. A similar situation occurs in France. The inadequacy is simply because most countries, especially poor ones, do not provide such data in a timely manner. The best official data only reflect more than half of the real numbers, while the worst data show only about a quarter of reality. Photo: The Economist The Economist has attempted to model the extent of excess deaths during the pandemic in countries that do not report. With 95% probability, the model estimates the number of deaths globally to date between 7.1 and 12.7 million, with an average of 10.2 million. Not surprisingly, most of the missed deaths are in low- and middle-income countries. The actual death toll in most rich OECD countries is 1.17 times the official data, but 14 times higher in sub-Saharan Africa. Notable points The structure of the first and second waves in Europe and the US is less visible in the data of the statistical model for the whole world. Overall, the pandemic is increasingly concentrated in developing economies and continues to increase. In some places, seroprevalence surveys have shown that many people have Covid-19 antibodies, a sign of previous illness. Other factors that may also play a role are the measures governments have taken to limit the spread of the virus. Demographics also have an effect, with more young people often synonymous with lower mortality rates. By collecting 121 indicators for more than 200 countries and regions and machine learning models, The Economist experts estimate that, by May 10, there is a 95% probability that the pandemic has led to 2.4 – 7.1 million excess deaths in Asia (official death toll at 0.6 million), 1.5 – 1.8 million in Latin America and the Caribbean (officially 0.6 million), approx. 0 -2.1 million in Africa (officially 0.1 million), 1.5 – 1.6 million in Europe (officially 1 million) and 0.6 – 0.7 million in the US and Canada ( official 0.6 million). In Oceania, where only 1,218 deaths are officially reported, the model predicts that the actual number of deaths is between 12,000 and 13,000. The estimated range for Africa and Asia is very broad due to lack of data. If the probability is 50%, the estimated range narrows significantly, to only 3.3 – 5.2 million excess deaths in Asia, 0.8 -1.6 million in Africa and 8 ,2 – 10.5 million cases worldwide. In 2020, the number of daily deaths increased during 33/52 weeks. After a brief lull in early 2021, they bounced to new highs, largely due to the tragedy in India. According to estimates, the South Asian country is seeing between 6,000 and 31,000 deaths a day, far exceeding the official figure of about 4,000, in line with independent epidemiological estimates. Remarkably, the death rate from the epidemic is actually worse in richer countries. For Asia and Africa, the estimated death toll per million population is about half that of Europe. India is just the equivalent of Britain, at least for the time being. If two communities have the same level of health care, the community with more elderly people will have a higher number of deaths. If demographics are the only differentiating factor, estimates suggest that epidemic deaths in Japan (mean age 48) are 13 times higher than in Uganda (mean age 17). However, in absolute terms, the mortality rate among the young and poor population is much higher than that of the rich population of the same age group. And for the elderly in poor countries, the situation is clearly dire. The number of excess deaths (red) and the number of officially announced deaths by week in the US. Photo: The Economist Meaning of model The fact that mortality rates are relatively low in the developing world seems to be due to age several different meanings, as the virus is spreading more easily among younger people, a finding that has been reinforced by investigations. serum value. This implies many cases of non-fatal illness. It also means that the virus has a lot of opportunities to mutate. There is a documented exception where in some Southeast Asian countries, mortality rates appear to be very low. It is possible that residents here are benefiting from “cross-immunity”, the level of protection against SARS-CoV-2 caused by infection in other virus outbreaks in the area in the past. But, unfortunately, there are now signs that the numbers are on the rise. The Economist’s estimation model is the first of its kind, though not the only way to deduce the total number of deaths from Covid-19. However, Ariel Karlinsky, a statistician at Israel’s Kohelet Economic Forum think tank, notes that either way, the estimates are no substitute for official data. Tuan Anh

The warship INS Kolkata of the Indian Navy transported 40 tons of liquid oxygen, oxygen tanks, and oxygen concentrators from Kuwait and Qatar to the port of Mangalore (ANI). Until the morning of May 10, transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force had made 534 flights across the country transporting 336 oxygen tanks with a total capacity of 6,420 tons and other medical supplies and equipment. This emergency air bridge connects 22 cities in India, helping to relieve the need for medical oxygen for the treatment of Covid-19 patients. The Indian Air Force has also made 84 flights abroad, receiving and transporting 81 cryogenic oxygen tanks with a total capacity of 1,407 tons along with empty oxygen tanks, oxygen generators– xy and Zeolite (a compound to make oxygen). India has ordered or received gifts of these devices and materials from Singapore, Dubai, Thailand, UK, Germany, Belgium, Australia, Indonesia and Israel. The Indian Navy also launched an emergency transport operation called ‘Samudra Setu II’, aiming to bring essential medical goods home as quickly as possible. Seven ships of this country’s Navy are being mobilized to carry out the work. The Indian Air Force has also established an essential medical supplies coordination committee to maintain information continuity and reduce time delays in the distribution of relief supplies from abroad.

Unlike city people who know how to use social networks, Basi villagers cannot go to Twitter to call for help from strangers. Basi village in Uttar Pradesh state. The state has more than 75% of its people living in rural areas, according to the most recent 2011 census of India. “Most of the people who died in the village were due to not being given oxygen in time,” said Sanjeev Kumar, the newly elected village chief. Mr. Kumar said the seriously ill had to travel four hours to get to the nearest hospital, but many died on the way. Village chief Sanjeev Kumar on May 10 holds portraits of recently deceased Covid-19 patients in Basi village, Uttar Pradesh state. Photo: Bloomberg. What happened in Basi village is a common image of rural India at the moment. Through interviews with representatives from more than 18 towns and villages across India, the scale of the crisis gradually emerged. According to the Indian Ministry of Health, the country has more than 25 million cases of Covid-19 and 274,390 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. But many believe that the scale of the crisis is significantly larger than the official figure, given that many villagers are sick but afraid to leave their homes, and the death toll from Covid-19 is not fully recorded. General image of rural India After the recent Basi village chief election, many election workers contracted coronavirus, including Kumarsain Nain, 59, and his 31-year-old son. When Nain had trouble breathing and had to go to the hospital, his family couldn’t find an ambulance with an oxygen ventilator, according to Praveen Kumar, another son of Nain. “When we got to the hospital, the doctor said my father had passed away. But instead of recording the cause of death as Covid-19, they just recorded cardiac arrest,” Kumar said. “The doctor said there is no need to check if my father is positive for Covid-19 because he is already dead.” Not long after, in another clinic, Kumar’s brother also died at the same time as six other patients. All 7 people were on ventilators at the time before they died. “I suspect that the hospital ran out of oxygen which led to death,” Kumar said. An outdoor cremation ground along the banks of the Yamuna River, a tributary of the Ganges, in Garh village, Uttar Pradesh state on May 4. Photo: Bloomberg. Reply Bloomberg On May 18, Mr. Baijayant Panda, a senior official in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, defended the government’s response. He pointed out that the electoral body is the one who decides to hold the vote, and that the state governments are responsible for building the oxygen plants. These facilities receive federal funding. “In early January, the general view was that India passed the strongest wave of corona virus infections. Many epidemiologists are voicing criticism right now, in fact the people who said in October 2020 that the worst is over, so there’s no need to put a lot of restrictions,” Panda said. In the state of Bihar, where nearly 90 percent of the population lives in the countryside, residents last week found 70 bodies floating in the Ganges. Because the crematorium is overcrowded, people are concerned that they cannot afford the funeral expenses, so they have to “send” the bodies of their relatives in the Ganges River. To this day, people still find bodies pushed ashore by the current. A similar scenario is seen in the state of Madhya Pradesh, where 72 percent of the population lives in rural areas, according to 2011 figures. “There are no hospital beds or medicines. People just lay there waiting to die. In the city of Ujjain and surrounding areas, in the past two weeks there have been several cases where the whole family has not survived,” said Rajesh Sharma, owner of a travel agency in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh state. “Unprecedented scale of crisis” In the state of Punjab, local authorities called on volunteers to knock on doors for health checks and urged people to get vaccinated. These medical volunteers (ASHA) have to work in difficult conditions to immunize children and provide first aid to the villages. But according to Balbir, an ASHA from Ludhiana district, Punjab, the scale of the crisis is unprecedented. The fields in Basi village were abandoned because many of the labor force fell ill. Photo: Bloomberg. “Many people are scared so they don’t tell anyone about their fever. Despite the outbreak of the disease, they still haven’t given us adequate protective gear: no masks, no gloves or anything,” Balbir said. The state of Uttarakhand, where nearly 70% of the population lives in rural areas, has also suffered a severe blow from Covid-19. The number of infections in Uttarakhand increased 20-fold after welcoming more than 9 million visitors to the Kumbh Mela ceremony on March 31-24. “There is not a single family in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand state without a sick person. Haridwar, in the same state of Uttarakhand, is in a similar situation,” said Navin Mohan, who helps arrange trips to holy towns on the banks of the Ganges. “The pandemic really got out of control. Thousands of people have died and will die in the coming weeks,” Mohan said.

As of 7am on May 11, related to the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases 2, there were 89 Covid-19 cases, of which 78 were at the hospital, 23 were Hanoians and 55 were at other hospitals. other province. Previously, as the new Han Newspaper reported, on the afternoon of May 9, the Ministry of Health announced the results of gene sequencing of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology on 8 samples of patients with Covid-19 in 3 provinces and cities. streets: Hanoi, Hung Yen and Thai Binh. As a result, all 8 samples belong to the Indian variant B1,617.2. Step 1: Visit https://www.bluezone.gov.vn or download directly at App Store or CH Play. Step 2: Once downloaded, the application will ask for permission to use Bluetooth to record contact with other Bluezone installed users. If Bluetooth is not open, drag the status bar and turn on Bluetooth; or go to Settings, select Bluetooth and turn it on. Step 3: Once the installation is done, click Scan Around. If someone near you less than 2m has used Bluezone, the application will automatically identify these users and put them in the contact list.

To date, India has recorded more than 25 million cases and 275,000 deaths from Covid-19. However, many experts say the real number could be many times higher. On the riverbanks, many cremation pylons burned around the clock, many cremation sites had no space left. This phenomenon partly reflects the unprecedented number of deaths and has not been updated in official data. According to the BBC , behind the bodies floating in the river is a story of customs, poverty and a deadly pandemic. Many cremation pylons burn around the clock in India. Photo: Getty. Frighten The horrifying story in the state of Uttar Pradesh first came to light on May 10. The opening was the event of 71 bodies washed up on the riverbank in the village of Chausa in Bihar. Officials said some of the remains may have been leftover body parts that fell into the Ganges after cremations, but they suspect the bodies were dumped in the river. The police put a net across the water to prevent the same thing from happening. A day later, about 10 kilometers from Chausa, dogs and crows were seen swarming with dozens of decomposing bodies on the banks of a river in the village of Gahmar, in the Pradesh Ghazipur region of Uttar state. Locals said the body had been washed up on the embankment for several days. However, the authorities ignored their complaints about the stench until news of the corpses found downstream of Bihar made the news. Dozens of bodies swell and decompose, floating in the river. They were discovered by people when they went for a morning dip in India’s holiest river. Sheet Hindustan Police reported that 62 bodies had been recovered. Meanwhile, in Kannauj, Kanpur, Unnao and Prayagraj, the riverbanks are dotted with shallow graves. Shallow graves by the Ganges River. Photo: Getty. Videos sent to BBC from the banks of the Mehndi ghat in Kannauj shows a series of mounds in the shape of human corpses. Each of these mounds contained a body. At the nearby Mahadevi ghat, at least 50 bodies were found. Crematorium is overloaded Traditionally, Hindus will cremate the dead. However, many communities have a practice known as “Jal Pravah” – the practice of floating the bodies of children, unmarried women, or those who have died of an infectious disease or been bitten by a snake. Many poor people do not have money to cremate their loved ones, so they also wrap their bodies in white cotton cloth and drop them into the water. Sometimes bodies are tied to rocks to ensure they will sink to the bottom of the river, but many bodies are floated without the stones tied. In the time before the pandemic, corpses floating in the Ganges were not an uncommon sight. However, the number of bodies in the river is too much in recent times, still surprising many people. A journalist in Kanpur said the number of bodies in the river was proof of the “big disparity between the official death toll and the actual death toll related to Covid-19” in India. He said that from April 16 to May 5, the official reported number was 196 deaths in Kanpur, but data from seven crematoriums showed there were nearly 8,000 cremations. “All electric crematoriums are open 24/7 in April. Even so, there are still not enough furnaces to cremate bodies, so the government has allowed the use of wood on the outside grounds for cremation,” he said. to speak. “However, crematoriums only accept confirmed Covid-19 bodies from the hospital, while a very large number of people who died at home have not been tested. Families of the dead bring the bodies of their loved ones out. on the outskirts of the city or to neighboring districts like Unnao. When they can’t find wood or a place to cremate, they drop the bodies on the riverbed.” Cremation platforms along the riverside. Photo: Getty. Another journalist in Prayagraj also believes that many of the bodies in the river are those of Covid-19 patients who died at home without being tested, or poor people who can’t afford cremation. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “These people are someone’s son, daughter, brother, sister, father or mother. They deserve to be respected when they die. But their deaths are not even recorded – no one knows they died or is known. How to be buried? Burial from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m The discovery of graves and decomposing bodies, along with fears that the bodies could have contracted Covid-19 have sparked panic in villages along the river. Originating in the Himalayas, the Ganges is one of the largest rivers in the world. Hindus consider this river a sacred river, they believe that bathing in the Ganges will wash away sins and use this river water for religious ceremonies. In Kannauj, Jagmohan Tiwari, a 63-year-old resident, reported seeing “150-200 shallow graves” by the river. “The burial took place from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.,” he said. The discovery of the graves caused panic in the area. People worry that bodies buried on the ground will start to float in the river when it rains and the water level rises. On May 12, the state government banned the practice of “Jal Pravah” and provided support for poor families who could not afford cremation. Relatives of a victim stand near the riverbank while the body is cremated. Photo: Getty. In many places, the police used sticks to retrieve the body from the river and called on the boatman to bring the body to the shore. After being retrieved, the decomposed bodies are buried in pits or burned on a cremation pyre. Ghazipur district judge Mangala Prasad Singh said teams had been set up, patrolling the riverbanks and cremation grounds to prevent people from dumping bodies in rivers or burying them on the banks. Bringing the ashes of unclaimed Covid-19 victims to the Ganges River Indian volunteers collect ashes from crematoriums to organize funerals for Covid-19 victims in Haridwar city.

Production of iPhone 12 at Foxconn’s factory in India fell by more than 50%. (Source: Reuters) Foxconn’s facility in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu specializes in manufacturing iPhones for India, the world’s second-largest smartphone market. Tamil Nadu is one of the hardest hit states in the second wave of Covid-19 that is sweeping across India. Authorities have imposed a complete blockade in the state since May 10, suspending public transport and closing shopping centers to prevent the number of infections from increasing. Reuters Citing two sources, more than 100 Foxconn employees in the state have tested positive for Covid-19 and the company has issued a ban on entering the Chennai factory until the end of May. A source stated that employees were only allowed to leave the factory but not enter since yesterday and only a small part of production is being maintained. Currently, the company has cut more than 50% of the factory’s capacity. However, the sources did not specify the capacity of the plant and did not say how many employees work at the facility. India has benefited from Apple moving some manufacturing from China to other markets. The company announced in March that it had begun assembling iPhone 12 in India. Although Apple’s market share is quite small in the mainly low-cost Indian market, Chief Executive Tim Cook said in January that its business in India doubled in the fourth quarter. 2020 year-over-year, thanks to the launch of an online store. According to market research firm Canalys, Apple’s growth momentum in India continued in the first quarter of 2021, with the business shipping more than one million iPhones. Demand for iPhone 12 is driven by domestic assembly and attractive financial incentives. Foxconn is not the only manufacturer in India affected by the raging Covid-19 epidemic. Nokia and Chinese smartphone maker Oppo last year also suspended production at their factories in the South Asian country after employees tested positive for Covid-19. Meanwhile, technology research firm TrendForce based in Taipei, Taiwan (China) on May 10 lowered its forecast for global smartphone output growth this year from 9.4% to 9.4%. 8.5%, citing that the outbreak in India is affecting major suppliers such as Samsung and Apple. (according to Reuters)

The island nation of Maldives is a tourist attraction. (Source: business-standard) The Maldives Islands have decided entry ban for people from South Asian countries; including India, in an effort to prevent the spread of the acute respiratory infection pandemic COVID-19 . The Maldives Ministry of Tourism on May 12 said: “The Maldivian government has decided to temporarily stop issuing tourist visas to visitors from South Asian countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.” The ban also applies to passengers who transit more than 24 hours in these countries and who have been to these countries within the past 14 days. Meanwhile, guests from other countries are still allowed to go to the Maldives resort islands if available negative PCR test within 96 hours before entry, but do not have contact with local people. Previously, the Maldives has reopened tourist resorts from July 2020 after 3 months of closure against the epidemic. But the country has recorded a record high number of new infections per day (1,500 cases on May 11), while a month ago, this number was less than 100 cases / day.

Those countries are Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Papua New Guinea, respectively. The leaders decided that the country would not have an official capital, since all territories were of equal importance. While the seat of government is in Bern, many other important buildings can be found scattered throughout the country. In the early 20s, two cities were selected to become the capital, Sydney and Melbourne. At that time there was a conflict, the Australian federal government could not choose one of the two cities mentioned above. In 1913, they built an entirely new city, Canberra. In 1908, under the compromise of two big cities Sydney and Melbourne, Canberra was chosen as the capital of Australia. In the past, this country used to hold more than 4,000 ships, mastering the waters from northern Japan to Java (Indonesia) in the south. Now, people rich in national pride still manage to maintain that tradition, even though they only have 4 temporary ships to go to sea and a total of 7 sailors. The onion shortage came about when unseasonal rains in western India in the summer of 2018, destroyed the crop and caused the price of onions to increase tenfold in 2019. It was the high price of onions that made them. become the second only barter after money. Onions are used to pay for taxis, as gifts for newlyweds, and as holiday bonuses. A man can auction it off if he thinks his wife is beautiful and has a high value. Not every wife who comes to the market is moody and sad. Many people are also happy and interested in this wife exchange. They think that everyone is happy to go to a new home. These mud cakes are made by mixing a special slurry with salt, margarine and water. Then, they are stirred into a special cake dough, molded and laid out on a large flat surface and then dried in the sun. Locals call mud cake Galette, the name given to a French delicacy.

But also in the media, it is seen that every morning, hundreds of Indians in the midst of the pandemic go to bathe in the Ganges River. No masks. No spacing. They hardly know or need to know what a Pandemic is… Peaceful Ganges! That’s the real India! Peaceful India is a country of religion! The etymology of the sacred Ganges is “Ganga”, the embodiment of the goddess Ganga – the daughter of the Himalayas – the guardian deity – the great mother of the country. Legend has it that in order to save the people from the severe drought, the god Sihva pulled a river from the sky above the heavens to flow through his hair for thousands of years and then poured down to earth. In the Vedas, there are also the most solemn words praising the Ganges River, which has the function of dissolving all sins and cleansing all impurities. According to Hindu beliefs – the majority of the Indian continent, bathing in the Ganges River means that all sins are washed away. If you drink river water before you die, it is a good omen for both the living and those who return to heaven. Many Hindus also ask to be cremated on the banks of the Ganges and then scatter the ashes into the river. Throughout history, since the legend, every morning, at dawn, tens of thousands of Indians flock to the banks of the Ganges River to bathe, meet, share, and chat. For them it is a great gift of life, so no power can take it away, not even the scary but invisible COVID virus… In the symbol of humanity, “water” which symbolizes the purification of desire directs people to the bright and benevolent domain. Because it is a flow, “river” is a symbol of renewal and rebirth. Moreover, it is also a symbol of purity (because of being purified) and an instrument of liberation. But with Indian culture, the holy Ganges River has a higher symbolic meaning than “giving prosperity and blessed salvation”. Therefore, those who bathe in the Ganges river will be “transmitted purity into their hearts” by the goddess. Most Hindus certainly believe so! The Ganges River becomes the patron god of the life and people of India, the mother river that flows cultural flows into the body of Indian society. Where there is lack of spiritual water from that spiritual flow, that place is not India! The most primitive legend tells that the goddess Ganga was always standing on a sea monster, which was her means of transportation. Her holy face was both stern, tolerant, kind, and holy. Her figure shows a symbol of strength, nobility, courage. She always wears a crown to reveal her high, pure, bright forehead. She always wears a necklace low down to her bountiful breasts symbolizing her ability to bestow prosperity… This legend is the fulcrum for two immortal epics, “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata”, the most massive ancient epics in the world. The “Mahabharata” alone is 7 times the length of the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” combined. A Battle on the banks of the Ganges in “Ramayana”! It can be affirmed that the structure of the massive “Mahabharata” epic is the structure of the great Ganges river flow because the river is like an artistic symbol expressing the spiritual life of the main characters, who govern and direct the people. as a spiritual leader. The opening part of the epic tells about the origin of genealogies with the main core being that the Vasus family sinned against the Taoist Vasita, so they were reincarnated into the world as the children of the goddess Ganges and King Santanu. As soon as they were born, they were thrown into the river by their mother (goddess) to free them from the Taoist spell. This is a great and constant archetype so that everyone wants to bathe in the Ganges River in the future with the desire to wash away sins. The motif of bathing in the sea and sacred river water becomes a common symbol for human culture talking about renewal and rebirth. God of Fire in Greek mythology was a naughty, hyperactive boy who once provoked Dot, so he was thrown into the sea, unfortunately, he fell on an island and lost his leg. Since then, the Fire god has been limping (flashing like fire!). In Egyptian mythology, Prince Morann, son of the king of Cairpe, was born a mute monster and was thrown into the sea. Fortunately, the sea water broke the monster mask so that later the prince became a great judge… But among those episodes, the meaning of bathing in the Ganges river is the most enduring, followed by many people. Best. And maybe forever as long as there is the Ganges! When epic wars occurred, the Ganges River served as a witness to history. Only in the space of the Ganges can the characters “enlighten” the truth and morality as well as the principles of Indian spiritual life, of the Indian spirit of peace and selflessness. Sacred water helps them return to their human roots to neutralize hatred. In front of the Ganges, the sinner will realize his sin and repent… There is an event that no one will miss when reading “Mahabharata” when the villain Aswatthama fled to the banks of the Ganges with the most cruel revenge of killing the Pandava family’s grandson still in the womb. but this action was nullified by the god Krishna. Then the whole Pandava family forgave him… It turned out that the Ganges had sanctified people. Since then forgiveness has become an Indian character, an Indian spirituality. At the end of the war, despite the victory, there is no victory song, because the war is destruction anyway, on both sides. King Yudhisthira triumphantly ascended the throne, but there were no grand festivals. Just a ritual sacrifice: “The king went to the Ganges River and according to the traditional custom of offering sacrifices to pray for the souls of the deceased to rest.” It should be said more clearly that the king prayed for all the dead souls, both on this side, on the other side, regardless. This detail shows more clearly the human meaning of the king’s enthronement without the corresponding ritual. It’s an Indian identity! And yet, King Yudhisthira is also depicted when standing in front of the Ganges River, he is like standing in front of a sacred, sacred and extremely mysterious cathedral, and then the mood rises with torment about what he has caused suffering to people. other. He repented. He judges and punishes himself. He became a symbol of endurance and patience… This symbol entered Indian culture and became a living and action maxim: “Patience is the highest virtue!”, “Tolerance is fame, endurance is glory!”. The Indian cosmology is also: “All things operate according to the principle of endurance!”. So we understand the modern Indian revolution based on the principle of non-violence! Because the moral concepts of endurance and patience have become the spiritual foundation of Indian society! In the epic “Ramayana” the characters always pray and bow to the Ganges. The character always considers the river a fulcrum of strength, a moral fulcrum for action. It is a creed as constant in each character. Legend has it that King Xagara sent sixty thousand sons to find the lost sacrificial horse. Those sons traveled all over the world, finally finding the horse near Kapila. They immediately thought that He was a thief. Enraged, the god Kapila burned all the children of King Xagara. The king’s grandson, Angxumana, received advice: “You must make offerings to the sacred water of Ganga. Okay, then the ashes of these sixty thousand people will go to heaven.” Indeed, when offering water to the Ganges River, the souls of the dead are liberated to the high land of bliss. Legend is deeply ingrained, imprinted in the Indian mind: When you die, you will be cremated on the banks of the Ganges River is a happiness! Tradition must always be in sync with the present for people to enter civilization. To hold on to tradition is to be conservative. The whole world is making the best efforts to prevent the epidemic … but in India it is not yet. That’s the lesson: A traditional gem in the light of modern science will shine even brighter!

Google has partnered with Western Union and Wise to enable this feature. According to Josh Woodward, Director of Product Management at Google, the company is starting to launch cross-border payments with Singapore and India, with the goal of expanding globally by the end of the year. “As we’ve done with some Google products, we’ll test, learn, iterate, and scale,” he said. Under the agreement, Western Union handles cross-border payments on Google in more than 200 countries, while Wise supports more than 80 countries. When Google Pay users in the US want to send money to someone in India and Singapore, they’ll be notified of the exact amount the recipient received. Inside the app, users can choose a provider – Wise or Western Union – and the time it takes for the money to reach the recipient. Currently, the Google Pay money transfer feature only allows US users to send money to users in India and Singapore, but not vice versa. In addition, the feature is also new to individual money transfers. Mr. Woodward shared that they chose India and Singapore first because of their importance in the remittance market. According to the World Bank, India was the largest recipient of money in the world in 2019 with more than 80 billion USD. Meanwhile, the US is the largest depositor. Du Lam (According to TechCrunch)

On Tuesday (May 11), the Maldives Ministry of Tourism announced: “The government decided to temporarily suspend the issuance of tourist visas to visitors from South Asian countries including India, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, as well as those who have transited in these countries within the past 14 days.” The ban is in effect from May 13, 2021 until further notice. This move comes in the context of the Maldives government trying to control the number of Covid-19 infections that have been on the rise again in the last 2 weeks. Maldives recorded a record increase of 1572 cases in a day on Wednesday (May 12), compared with less than 100 cases in the previous month. Taking samples for Covid test in June 2020 in Maldives Maldives was one of the first countries to reopen to tourists in July last year. As soon as the Covid-19 wave broke out in India, the rich Indians and many Bollywood stars flew to the Maldives and showed off their check-in photos of 5-star beaches and resorts online, causing outrage. angry at home. In April this year, officials announced plans to vaccinate resort tourists, after all Maldivians were vaccinated. So far, about 25% of locals have been fully vaccinated, according to figures compiled by CNN. By May, the Maldivian authorities had introduced new restrictions. All new arrivals are required to present full documentation of a negative test done within 96 hours prior to arrival in the archipelago. New restrictions by the Maldivian government mean that India’s super-rich will look elsewhere to flee the epidemic. And Dubai is emerging as a top alternative destination, with bookings up 10% in recent weeks, said Rajan Mehra, CEO of Club One Air.

From the day she married her Indian husband and was pregnant with her first baby, Vo Ha Tram still regularly receives attention from fans. The beauty also did not lose color during many “pregnancy” months, so she received more and more compliments from the public. In addition to pregnancy care methods, the singer also focuses on training to stay in shape to stay beautiful even during pregnancy. This makes many mothers respect and admire beautiful people more. Vo Ha Tram with her “not-so-medium” beauty is increasingly sought after by the public. Recently, on her personal page, Vo Ha Tram has updated her image of working hard to stay in shape during the days when her belly was quite large. The beauty excitedly shared: “When the gym closes, my mother and I practice at home, Moon. Now I’m right around the clock, very sexy.” The beauty is not afraid to share the secret to being able to always be beautiful during pregnancy. Therefore, the article on her personal page is still receiving a lot of interaction, especially from the diaper mother association as well as colleagues and friends. The exercise that the pregnant mother is doing is a cable pull exercise that helps to exert force on the back of the hand, the back of the bucket. At the same time, it also supports against back fatigue for mothers in the last months of pregnancy. At the bottom of the post are the fans’ admiration and respect for this pregnant mother. Many people believe that Vo Ha Tram has the spirit of “sports”, always knows how to keep a healthy, slim and admirable figure even when “pregnancy”. Others praised the beauties “standard pregnant women in the 4.0 era”, even though the gym is no longer open, they are still very conscious of keeping in shape. In addition, the public also sent 9X female singer many wishes and questions about her health. If you regularly follow Vo Ha Tram’s personal page, surely the audience will notice that the beauty always knows how to make herself healthy and beautiful even though she is pregnant. For many pregnant women, the period of pregnancy and childbirth is always an obsession because they are often depressed. But looking at Vo Ha Tram’s appearance is enough to understand how beautiful people have had a way to keep in shape and keep their beauty at the top. To receive the admiration of fans, Vo Ha Tram has applied different skin care and body care tips during the past time. Let’s find out some tips to be “friended” by beautiful people: 1. Don’t forget to exercise, combine skin care thoroughly During her pregnancy, Vo Ha Tram was still very excited about daily gym exercises. Before that, the beauty also shared many times working hard at the gym to exercise every day. At the present time, this is still a method of “gut” to help beauties keep supple, healthy and beautiful. Besides, the female singer also does not neglect the important skincare steps in the skin care process to keep the skin smooth as desired. The benefits from the gym to the health and beauty of women are not small, including Vo Ha Tram. 2. Pay attention to your diet Especially during pregnancy, beautiful people pay more attention to their diet. Vbiz beauties have healthy diets: full of vitamins and minerals. In particular, vegetables and starches are also indispensable in daily meals. The female singer also eliminates all unhealthy foods such as chemical sugars, carbonated drinks, … to get the most scientific nutrition. So it can be affirmed that diet is one of the most important factors in the process of beauties taking care of children from the womb as well as keeping this body slim right after pregnancy. 3. Keep positive energy In order to have a balanced, slim body and radiant beauty in the past few days, beautiful people also do not forget to keep a comfortable, happy and positive spirit every day. Psychology is equally important, contributing to Vo Ha Tram’s beauty from deep within. The voice born in 1990 is beautiful and radiant when “pregnancy” is as beautiful as when she was young. She also always enjoys happiness with her foreign husband, making people jealous. With many self-care tips, Vo Ha Tram is always considered a beautiful, salty person even while pregnant. Surely the tips that the beauties apply will also help the sisters have more motivation to always have the most attractive appearance. This will make you more confident, comfortable showing off your personality and distinctive features.

Miss Universe CEO tells the story of taking Khanh Van to the US Sharing from the US, Tran Viet Bao Hoang – the national director of Miss Universe Vietnam – said that Khanh Van injured her leg and could only sleep 4 hours a day because the training schedule was too tight. 1. Thailand: Page Missosology Thailand’s highest rated contestants. Amanda Obdam was praised for shining in a gold dress with stones, a deep slit skirt showing off her long legs and slim waist. “She looks elegant and confident. Obdam is scoring points and is sure to enter the next round,” the expert said. 2. India: This year’s representative of the South Asian country is highly appreciated by many experts. She was predicted by many beauty sites as Miss Universe 2020. On the semi-final night, Adline Castelino wore a metallic dress with a moderately open chest, the highlight was the waist detail, the high slit skirt showed off her long legs. “With this performance, I would not be surprised if Castelino is India’s third Miss Universe”, expert Ric G. Galvez commented. 3. Romania: Although Romania was ranked third, experts were also surprised by this. Previously, Romania was not appreciated in the competition. However, Bianca Lorena Tirsin performed well in the evening performance of the semi-final. Romanian costumes are simple but effective in terms of looks. The stylized floral print detail on the bodice helps Tirsin score. 4. Costa Rica: Ivonne Cerdas is considered by experts to have a slim figure, elegant and flexible catwalk. The representative of Costa Rica was successful when wearing a striking yellow outfit with sexy shoulder details. That helped her become the leading Latino contestant in the semi-final evening competition. 5. Peru: The dress model of contestant Janick Maceta Del Castillo is considered by experts to be the most luxurious outfit of the night. Nude dress with metallic details accentuates curves and helps Peruvian beauties cheat their height. 6. Curacao: Representatives of Curacao have never disappointed beauty fans. Contestant Chantal Wiertz made a mark with a body-hugging silver outfit. Wild beauty helps Wiertz shortlisted as potential contestants to win the Miss Universe 2020 crown. 7. Puerto Rico: Unlike most contestants who choose metallic and silver costumes on stage, the Puerto Rican representative quickly captured the attention of international media with an emerald evening gown. “I see the aura of Queen Cleopatra inside Estefania Soto Torres. She brings classic Hollywood beauty,” the expert asserted. 8. Venezuela: According to the expert’s revelation, the members of the judging panel gave many compliments to Mariangel Villasmil. Like every year, when other contestants are noticed by region, Venezuela is still separate and impressive in its own way. The design that penetrates the skirt, lopsided shoulders, and a confident and professional performance style help Villasmil make a mark. 9. Cameroon: Usually, black beauties choose vibrant outfits to accentuate their skin tone. However, the Cameroonian representative chose a metallic dress to make a mark on the 69th Miss Universe semi-final night. The long-sleeve design – which is considered outdated – was impressed by the confident performance of the beauty. Angele Kossinda. 10. Finland: Gold has long been a favorite color on the Miss Universe stage. The beauty from Finland chooses a classic fringed shoulder dress. The flat, straight and middle parted hairstyle helped Viivi Altonen to be included in the list of 10 most beautiful evening gown contestants in the semi-final.

Even more sad is that those endless tragedies still have no end. These stories will appear more and more, as the Covid-19 pandemic begins to spread from big cities to rural India, where the health system is much worse than the urban areas. The picture is full of contrasts The Indian capital New Delhi recorded nearly 12,500 new Covid-19 cases on May 12 – just half of the number recorded here on April 30. Another somewhat positive sign is that the positive rate of tests has dropped to 19%, from a peak of 36% a few weeks earlier. A farmers market in Mumbai on May 11. Photo: Reuters. A similar positive situation is recorded in Mumbai – India’s most populous city. The positive rate of the test here dropped to 7%, below the 10% recommended by WHO. That partly shows that the two largest cities of India are gradually controlling the epidemic. However, if looking at the whole picture, the picture of the Covid-19 pandemic does not seem to have too many bright spots. Dark spots are appearing more and more, especially in rural India. This leads to a conundrum: If New Delhi, which has good health infrastructure and many good hospitals, struggles to contain the pandemic, how can rural areas where the system much weaker health care – can withstand the wave of epidemics. And the answer came pretty quickly. When the source of oxygen is exhausted On May 11, Sri Venkateswara Ramnarain Ruia Hospital in Andhra Pradesh state ran out of oxygen supply, while more than 60 patients were in critical condition. 11 patients later died. In anger, relatives of these people stormed into the intensive care unit, knocking over tables and chairs and smashing equipment. Television images showed several people clutching their heads in grief, while doctors and nurses fled for fear of assault. A Covid-19 patient is being cared for at a public hospital in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Photo: Reuters. Andhra Pradesh, like many other southern states, is facing severe oxygen shortages. Statistics of an Indian newspaper show that oxygen depletion has taken place in 20 hospitals, leading to the deaths of more than 200 patients. In the past, the southern states of India have agreed to share oxygen with each other. Now, some states want to end the cooperation. The southern state of Tamil Nadu refused to share oxygen with the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh, where the tragedy took place that left 11 people dead. The state of Kerala also refused to share oxygen because of the state’s high demand for oxygen, as the test positive rate in the state increased to 27% from 8% in early April. “Many people have died without treatment,” commented Rijo M. John, a health economist in Kerala. Behind the bodies in the river People in Bihar, a northern Indian state, could not help but be shocked when they discovered dozens of bodies, suspected of being Covid-19 victims, washed up on the banks of the Ganges River on May 10. “I have never seen so many corpses,” said Arun Kumar Srivastava, a local doctor. He also said that “there will certainly be more deaths”, as many people carry bodies on their shoulders. A family member of a Covid-19 patient is grieving after hearing the news of a loved one’s death. Photo: Reuters. Officials said the bodies were dropped by ambulance drivers from a bridge, and denied that the bodies were floated by relatives due to lack of burial conditions. Krishna Dutt Mishra, an ambulance driver in Bihar, said that many people had to drop the bodies of loved ones in the river because the cremation price was too high. According to him, during the second Covid-19 wave, the price of cremation has increased from 2,000 rupees (about 27 USD) to 15,000 rupees (200 USD). This is a huge sum of money for many Indian families, and as a result, cremating a loved one becomes an impossibility for them. “I drove all the way from Buxar to Chausa. I’ve never seen dead bodies in the river, let alone seen dozens, or hundreds of bodies,” Mr. Mishra said. Bringing the ashes of unclaimed Covid-19 victims to the Ganges River Indian volunteers collect ashes from crematoriums to organize funerals for Covid-19 victims in Haridwar city.

The banks of the Ganges River in the city of Garhmukteshwar, Uttar Pradesh state (India’s most populous state) became a place to cremate the bodies of people who died of COVID-19. Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES The epidemic is spreading rapidly to the countryside After four consecutive days of recording the number of infections above 400,000 / day, the last two days the number of daily infections in India has fallen below this level. Many government health officials and experts predict this second wave of epidemics in India will peak around the end of this week. However, it seems that the epidemic crisis in India is moving to a more dangerous new phase. The danger is that the virus is now spreading rapidly to rural areas, according to the CIDRAP Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. In the article in the newspaper New York Times Journalist Jeffrey Gettleman, head of this newspaper’s office in the capital New Delhi, also said that the infection and death from COVID-19 that broke out in big cities a few weeks ago is now spreading very quickly to rural areas. village. New Delhi recorded nearly 12,500 infections on May 11, less than half of the number recorded on April 30. Hospitals in New Delhi are now accepting patients again, after having to stop accepting them because of overcrowding last month, leaving infected people to die on the streets. Mumbai also recorded the same. The danger is that the number of infections in New Delhi and Mumbai will probably stop increasing and decrease gradually, but in many other places will increase. In other words, the situation of New Delhi a few weeks ago now extends to almost the entire country. Some of the worst-affected states are in the south, especially Karnataka. I cannot imagine what would happen in rural India. Expert RIJO M. JOHN worried about the prospect of the COVID-19 epidemic overflowing into the countryside How will it be? This fact raises a terrifying question: If New Delhi, a rich metropolis with dozens of hospitals, is unable to handle the current wave of high cases, what will happen once this wave spreads to the country? poor rural areas? The answer seems to be gradually becoming clear. On the evening of May 10, a leading hospital in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh ran out of medical oxygen. More than 60 critically ill patients wear breathing tubes but no oxygen. The doctors worked frantically, but 11 patients did not survive that night. In a distraught over the loss of a loved one, family members stormed into the hospital and smashed it. Doctors and nurses had to flee until the police arrived. It can be clearly seen that the hospital overload, lack of oxygen, medicine … very serious even in large urban areas will be more alarming in rural states, according to the radio. CNN . Chogath farming village in the western state of Gujarat has a population of 7,400, but there are 500-600 infections, the number of people who have not survived is very high because the whole village does not have a doctor. Nearby towns have several medical centers, but these small facilities have run out of beds and medical facilities. Dinesh Makwana drove his father, who was severely infected with COVID-19, through four medical centers in neighboring towns, but had to return home, because these centers had run out of beds. Usually about 30 people die in this village every year, but in the past month alone, villagers have had to cremate 90 bodies, according to Mr. Girjashankar. Many families have lost a lot of loved ones to COVID-19. Girjashankar, 70, still volunteered to go up the hill to cut firewood to help cremate the dead. Many southern states such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu have made it clear that they will not share the medical oxygen they have with each other, having to keep it to serve hospitals that are overloaded because the number of patients is growing too fast in their states. Medical aid goods from other countries have started pouring into India since the end of April, but it is still not enough compared to the reality of the shortage in this country. Currently, in addition to urban areas suffering from severe epidemics, Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s government also spends some oxygen and medicine to urgently distribute to the states. However, with this little common ground, remote and isolated localities such as Chogath village (Gujarat state) still have to rely on their own strength.• Drop the body Ganges River because there is no money for cremation Newspaper Indian Express On May 10, Indians discovered more than 40 bodies washed up on the banks of the Ganges River near Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states in the north. Some news channels say that the number of bodies floating in the Ganges must be in the hundreds. In India, there is a custom that when a family member dies, the relatives will tie a stone to the body and drop it into the Ganges River – a sacred river for Hindus. However, many officials and locals believe that these bodies are those who died from COVID-19. Many bodies were partially burned and locals explained that the bodies were not cremated or cremated incompletely due to a severe shortage of firewood. Another reason families choose to drop their loved ones’ bodies in the river is because they can’t stand the cost of cremation, many health workers told the newspaper. New York Times . Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are two of India’s poorest states and are home to about 370 million people. Doctors warn people not to use cow dung on their bodies in the belief that it will help their immune systems deal with the virus or help them recover faster if they get sick. Hindus believe cows are a symbol of life and cow dung or cow urine is therapeutic. However, according to doctors, not only is there no scientific evidence that this can defeat COVID-19 but can also bring many other disease risks.

Nigeria will become the next big Covid-19 “outbreak” after India. (Source: Anadolu Agency/Getty) And experts are cautiously observing a developing country, with a large area, disparities in health services and unequal access to vaccines, like India, that is Nigeria. With 200 million people, it is the most populous country in West Africa and the 7th most populous country in the world. Ngozi Erondui, a senior research fellow at the Chatham House Center for Global Health Security in the UK, said that “Nigeria is really vulnerable” and “has a lot in common with India”. When rich countries are not willing to share The world will not be able to do anything to prevent Covid-19 from ravaging Nigeria like the situation is happening in the past days in India. A more equitable distribution of vaccines could build a “firewall” against the rise in infections in Nigeria, as well as in other less developed countries. However, that will require the more economically developed countries of the world to share rescue resources with poorer countries. The tragic case of India proves that the vaccine-rich country in the world will not be in a hurry to help poor countries on distant continents. In fact, Africa is not necessarily synonymous with “poverty”. The continent is huge and diverse, comprising 54 countries with 1.2 billion people running economies from large to small, rich to poor, strong to weak. Likewise, African countries’ pandemic experiences vary widely. South Africa, one of the wealthiest countries on the continent, was hit hard last summer and then returned in January. Officials in the region recorded more than 54,000 deaths. The mortality rate is 93 deaths per 100,000 population, a number far below the US 175 deaths per 100,000 population, but much higher than the global average of 38 deaths. per 100,000 inhabitants. So far, many less industrialized African countries have avoided catastrophic spikes in infections, recording fewer deaths than rich countries. A total of 580,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 while only 1,600 Nigerians have died from the pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 virus – “opportunistic” virus However, that doesn’t mean Covid-19 won’t reach Nigeria and other African countries, it just means it hasn’t arrived yet. Lawrence Gostin, a global health expert at Georgetown University, told T he Daily Beast : “I am seeing the possibility that the Covid-19 fires will ravage around the world in the weeks and months to come. And I’m most worried about Africa.” According to Mr. Gostin, “the crisis in India is a leading indicator of what is to come in other low- and middle-income countries”. Despite its crowded cities, limited public health measures and a patchwork health care system, India has so far been considered relatively fortunate. The South Asian country has 1.37 billion people but only 160,000 deaths so far in March, with a rate of 11 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. Then, in April, a new and more contagious variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, known as B.1.617, emerged and spread across India, causing a record increase in cases and deaths. green. In just a few weeks, India had nearly 50,000 more deaths. The death rate rose to 15 per 100,000 population. When this article was published, the Covid-19 wave in India was underway, but the trend was already decreasing. The rate of new cases and deaths is decreasing. And while it is predicted that tens of thousands of more Indians will die before this spike is over, at least the pandemic has not gotten any worse in the country. But the SARS-CoV-2 virus is an opportunistic virus. It always finds places that are densely populated but have no protection. Spreading through the air from person to person, Covid-19 establishes a “laboratory” in each body that the virus infects. Each SARS-CoV-2 virus mutates after two weeks of infection for as long as it is active, and seeks to evolve so that it can create a new variant that is increasingly contagious. New variants help the virus spread even faster in a self-reinforcing cycle that ends only with drastic social distancing, vaccinations and antibodies among survivors, or more likely a combination of the virus. all three methods to cut off the transmission route of Covid-19. It is no coincidence that SARS-CoV-2 thrived in India this month. Popular religious festivals have attracted thousands of people who attended without wearing masks. Meanwhile, India’s vaccination effort is very bad. According to statistics, the South Asian country has fully vaccinated only 3% of the population, compared with more than 30% in the US. The global average for full immunization is also a little over 3%. From the epidemiologist’s point of view, Nigeria, with its many overcrowded cities, high poverty rates and shabby health system, is quite similar to India, but worse in some respects. India has at least some domestic vaccine manufacturers, while Nigeria has none. The African country must import all doses of the vaccine from outside. That explains why Nigeria only partially immunizes 1% of the population and almost no one is fully vaccinated. The Lagos government is expected to receive 84 million doses of the vaccine from AstraZeneca and Johnson&Johnson in the coming weeks. But that number is only enough to inject a fifth of the country’s population. Meanwhile, the proportion that experts say could lead to “herd immunity” is vaccination of three-quarters of the population, which blocks most routes of transmission and can last up to year 2022. Shortage side, surplus side To help Nigeria and the underserved countries, the rich countries of the world should stop hoarding vaccines excessively. Of course, more shots are not a panacea, and even a country with many vaccines can have trouble administering. However, the vaccine shortage, and the hesitation among people who doubt the vaccine’s effectiveness, could further slow the vaccination process. Shaun Truelove, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said that “the only way to know if Nigeria is managing vaccines well is to keep shipping the vaccine to the country”. Global supply is not the biggest problem. The United States, a country with many vaccine manufacturers, has a stockpile of more than 60 million doses of vaccine while continuing to have more vaccines supplied by factories, while vaccination rates are falling. especially for Republicans. It was only a few weeks after the sudden spike in Covid-19 in India that the administration of President Joe Biden promised to ship an additional number of vaccines to New Delhi. The AstraZeneca vaccine isn’t even authorized in the US. For Americans, those doses of vaccines are not only redundant but also useless. The problem of severe delays in the release of excess vaccines was anticipated a year ago. In the spring of 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) together with a number of international public-private partners, came together to establish the Global Access to Vaccines Covid-19 initiative, or COVAX. The COVAX initiative allows rich countries to pay for vaccines to poor countries. COVAX’s goal was to deliver 100 million doses by March, but it actually delivered less than 40 million doses. “This has failed Nigeria and many countries,” Mr. Erondu said [trong việc tiêm chủng]”. America is part of the problem. The Trump administration has refused to sign on to COVAX, a move that reflects its narrow “America First” philosophy. The Trump administration at the time either didn’t understand, or didn’t care, that vaccinating poor countries also helped protect rich countries. After all, the virus doesn’t care about borders. Mr. Biden reversed the decision in February. The administration has committed $4 billion in cash, making the US the largest donor of COVAX, albeit somewhat belatedly. In a parallel move, Mr. Biden also signaled support for a controversial proposal to give the WTO a copyright exemption for a Covid-19 vaccine. In theory, the decision would allow any manufacturer in any country to produce doses of the vaccine. However, experts are still divided on whether the patent waiver will lead to more doses of the vaccine being shipped to countries in need. Meanwhile, many richer countries have been slow to implement their COVAX commitments. Meanwhile, strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus continue to target unprotected populations from one area to another. Nigeria is about to become the “storm center” of Covid-19. However, this West African country may not suffer the same fate as India. Because vaccines are available. Existing mechanisms will get the vaccine to the countries that need it most. It is worth mentioning that many countries have a surplus of vaccines but do not appreciate the importance of sharing vaccines with other countries. (According to Daily Beast)