China dispatches 650,000 medical kits to India to fight COVID-19: Indian envoy
Beijing: China on Thursday dispatched 650,000 coronavirus medical kits to India to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Indian Ambassador to Beijing Vikram Misri said.
Over two million test kits being procured from China will be sent to India in the next 15 days, he told PTI here.
#IndiaFightsCoronavirus A total of 650,000 kits, including Rapid Antibody Tests and RNA Extraction Kits have been despatched early today from Guangzhou Airport to #India, Misri tweeted on Thursday.
As its factories resumed operations after over a two-month grim battle against the coronavirus, China is busy tapping into the vast business opportunities of export of key medical goods, especially ventilators and personal protection equipment (PPE), across the world, including India, where both private and government bodies are placing orders for the import of these products.
Two major consignments of medical kits were reported to have been sent to India from China earlier as part of efforts to step up testing specially in hotspots during the current lockdown in the country.
India has extended its ongoing lockdown to fight the coronavirus till May 3. It has reported 414 deaths due to the disease and 12,380 people have been infected by the disease in the country.
Considering the importance, Misri said the Indian Embassy is facilitating commercial procurements besides coordinating flight linkages for their timely arrival in India.
On Tuesday, Misri told media here that India has placed orders to procure 15 million personal protection gear from China for medical personnel treating COVID-19 patients besides three million testing kits.
The orders are being placed with bonafide firms with the help of the Chinese government.
"I think facilitation of our needs and our requirements in a timely manner, in a smooth manner, on a predictable timeline at prices that are stable and orderly, would be the best signal possible to send for the India-China relationship," Misri said.
As demand for Chinese medical supplies scaled up due to the spread of the virus in several parts of world, China on Wednesday asked all the countries to import these items through reputed Chinese firms cleared by the government and vowed to punish those involved in counterfeit behaviour.
Responding to questions about quality concerns raised by several countries related to medical equipment imports from China, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing here on Wednesday that the Chinese government is facilitating the orderly exports.
"We hope foreign buyers can choose products from companies that have been accredited by Chinese regulators with good production credentials," he said.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
2019 mud attack on engineer: Maharashtra court sentences BJP minister Nitesh Rane to one-month jail
Mumbai (PTI): A court in Sindhudurg on Monday convicted Maharashtra minister Nitesh Rane in a 2019 case of pouring mud on an NHAI engineer when he was in opposition, and sentenced him to one-month imprisonment, noting that lawmakers are not supposed to take the law into their hands.
Later, the court suspended Rane's sentence, allowing him time to appeal before a higher court, while acquitting 29 other accused in the case.
"Even though Rane's intention was to raise a voice against the poor quality of work and inconvenience faced by the people, he was not supposed to humiliate or insult a public servant in public," additional sessions court judge V S Deshmukh stated.
"If such incidents continue to occur, public servants would not be able to discharge their duties with dignity," the judge noted.
ALSO READ: 19-yr-old woman found hanging from tree in UP village; juvenile held
Calling the act "abuse of power", the court held that "it is the demand of time to curb such tendency".
Rane, a son of former Union minister Narayan Rane, was among 30 people charged under various offences, including rioting, assault to deter a public servant, and criminal conspiracy. He was in Congress when the incident occurred.
All the accused, including Nitesh Rane, were acquitted of these offences, as the court found insufficient evidence to support most of these claims.
However, the court found Nitesh Rane guilty of an offence under section 504 (intentional insult meant to provoke a breach of public peace) and sentenced him to one month's jail.
Rane, then a Congress MLA, had called the Sub-Divisional Engineer of the National Highway Authority, Prakash Shedekar, to a bridge over the Gad river in Kankavli on July 4, 2019, for inspecting the work to widen the Mumbai-Goa Highway.
According to the prosecution, Nitesh Rane and his followers, frustrated by the poor quality of the roadwork and waterlogging, confronted the engineer. They poured muddy water on Shedekar and forced him to walk through slush in public.
The court, after perusing the evidence on record, noted that the informant (victim) was holding a high post in the National Highway Authority.
"Despite that, he was made to walk through the muddy water in public. It would have certainly humiliated and insulted him," the court remarked.
The judge held that Rane compelling Shedekar to walk through the muddy water "was nothing but an intentional insult to the informant," and provocation which will cause him to break the public peace.
