NEW DELHI: Aviation regulator DGCA has extended the suspension of domestic flights by a fortnight till April 14 in view of the ongoing 21-day nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus crisis.
The Director-General of Civil Aviation had earlier stopped operations of passenger flights on all domestic routes from March 25 to March 31.
“All domestic operators engage in scheduled, non-scheduled and private aircaraft operations in India shall ensure strict compliance of the order,” said a DGCA circular.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced a 21-day lockdown to contain the spread of the disease.
The first images from India of the coronavirus causing the Covid-19 disease have been caught by scientists in Pune, using transmission electron microscope imaging. They were published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research.
“Coronavirus have a crown-like appearance and these spikes on the surface give this virus family its name, as corona means crown in Latin. They have evolved to recognise a variety of receptors, including protein receptors and sugar receptors, and enter cells by first recognising a host-cell-surface receptor for viral attachment, and then fusing viral and host membranes for entry,” said Dr Nirmal K Ganguly, former director general, Indian Council of Medical Research.
The images of Sars-Cov-2, the virus that Causes Covid-19, are from the throat swab of the first laboratory-confirmed case in India on January 30, 2020. The woman, among three students studying medicine in Wuhan, was diagnosed with Covid-19 after returning home.
Covid-19 has infected at least 540,000 people and killed close to 25,000 since the first cluster of cases were detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.
Gene sequencing of the samples from Kerala done at NIV Pune found the virus was a 99.98% match with the virus in China’s Wuhan.
“One particular virus particle was very well preserved, showing features very typical of coronaviruses. This particle was 75 nm in size and showed patchy stain pooling on the surface and a distinct envelope projection ending in round peplomeric (glycoprotein spike on the viral surface). These bind only to certain receptors on the host cell,” said Dr Atanu Basu, deputy director and head of electron microscopy and pathology at NIV Pune, which published the imaging.
To get the image, his group used centrifugation to remove the debris from a 500 μl sample from the throat swab of the Kerala Covid-19 case confirmed using the highly sensitive, by real-time, polymerase chain reaction.
G20 Virtual Summit PM Modi noted the alarming social and economic cost of the pandemic. He added that 90 per cent of the COVID-19 cases and 88 per cent of deaths were in G20 countries
T he PM pitched for developing a new crisis management protocol to deal with the coronavirus epidemic. The PM called on the G-20 leaders to help usher in new globalisation, for the collective well-being of humankind. Modi added human beings rather than economic targets should be put at the centre of its vision for global prosperity and cooperation.
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin also agreed to contribute to the WHO-led COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund on a voluntary basis.
The G20 grouping shares 80 per cent of world’s GDP and 60 per cent of world population.
The bloc said it will continue to provide fiscal support to deal with the economic aspects of the crisis.
“Collective G20 action will amplify its impact, ensure coherence, and harness synergies. The magnitude and scope of this response will get the global economy back on its feet and set a strong basis for the protection of jobs and the recovery of growth,” the bloc said.
In the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, Cognizant Technology Solutions has announced an additional payment of 25 per cent of the base pay for April for employees up to the associate level in India and the Philippines. This applies to more than two-thirds of the IT firm’s India workforce.
Cognizant gives two-third of its employees 25% of base salary as additional payment
“In recognition of the extraordinary continuity-of-service efforts of our associates in India and the Philippines, and as a tangible sign of our gratitude for their perseverance, we will provide those at the associate level and below with an additional payment of 25 per cent of their base pay for the month of April. This will be processed with your April paycheck, and we will be reviewing this approach monthly,” said Brian Humphries, the company’s CEO, in a communication to employees this morning.
“My appreciation for the heroic work of our associates extends across our company to our commercial and delivery teams and to all of our support functions including security, both physical and cyber, government affairs, HR, IT, real estate, and more. This crisis has not only brought our company closer together but also brought out the best in everyone,” he added.
Cognizant has enabled work from home (WFH) for the majority of its offshore teams to ensure employee health and safety, and to maintain continuity of service for clients, while safeguarding their data and protecting access to their systems, said Humphries in the note. The WFH measures include provisioning new laptops and encrypting desktops and moving them to associate homes, enabling the use of BYOD (bring your own device), providing additional bandwidth connectivity and air cards — all with the appropriate client permissions and security protocols, he added.
“While working from home may amount to a significant shift in behaviour for many of you, please continue to keep up the essential work you do for our clients,” he said.
