Polling underway for Turkey elections
Ankara, June 24 : Polling was underway on Sunday in Turkey's parliamentary and presidential elections where incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking re-election for a new five-year term which he says will bring prosperity and stability to the country.
Polling began at 8 a.m. and will continue till 5.00 p.m. There are a total of 56,322,632 registered voters with 180,065 ballot boxes across the country, reports Anadolu news agency.
Erdogan, who is representing the People's Alliance formed by the Justice and Development (AK) Party and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), must secure more than 50 per cent of the vote for an outright win. If the threshold is not reached, a runoff could be held on July 8 between the leading two contenders, Hurriyet Daily News reported.
Five candidates are in the fray against Erdogan who has been in power since he was elected Prime Minister in 2003.
Deemed his main rival, physics teacher Muharrem Ince is backed by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and has wooed crowds with an engaging election campaign.
His rallies in Turkey's three main cities of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir drew massive numbers.
Also challenging Erdogan is former Interior Minister Meral Aksener, Hurriyet reported.
The only female candidate, Aksener broke away from Turkey's main nationalist party over its support for Erdogan and formed the centre-right and nationalist Good Party (IYI Party).
Turkey will also be electing 600 lawmakers to parliament - 50 more than in the previous assembly. For the parliamentary polls, eight political parties are in the fray.
Voters will cast two separate ballot papers in the same envelope -- one for the presidential and one for the parliamentary elections.
After the voting ends, ballots cast for the presidential candidates will be counted first.
Some 1.49 million expats voted in a 13-day period between June 7-19 at 123 Turkish missions abroad.
Whoever wins the election will be given sweeping new powers, as the role of Prime Minister is dissolved and the President gains the authority to issue laws by decree, reports CNN.
Erdogan has dominated Turkish politics since 2003.
He implemented policies that encouraged sustained economic growth and development, challenged Turkey's secular foundations by bringing Islamic conservatism to public life and gutted public institutions by having tens of thousands arrested following a failed military coup in 2016.
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Jhansi fire: Nurse's heroic efforts helped save over dozen babies
Lucknow/Jhansi (UP), Nov 17: Nurse Megha James was on duty when the fire broke out at the Jhansi hospital and she threw herself headlong into the rescue efforts, playing a hero's role by saving several babies.
Even when her salwar got burned, she refused to give up and was able to evacuate 14-15 babies with others' help.
"I had gone to take a syringe to give an injection to a child. When I came back, I saw that the (oxygen) concentrator had caught fire. I called the ward boy, who came with the fire extinguisher and tried to put it out. But by then, the fire had spread," James said.
Ten babies perished in a fire that broke out at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College in Jhansi Friday night.
Faced with an enormous blaze, James's mind worked with a frenetic speed, to the extent she cared little about burning herself.
"My chappal caught fire and I burned my foot. Then my salwar caught fire. I removed my salwar and discarded it. At that time, my mind was virtually not working," she told PTI Videos.
James just wore another salwar and went back to the rescue operation.
"There was a lot of smoke, and once the lights went out, we could not see anything. The entire staff brought out at least 14-15 children. There were 11 beds in the ward with 23-24 babies," she said.
Had the lights not gone out they could have saved more children, James said. "It all happened very suddenly. None of us had expected it."
Assistant Nursing Superintendent Nalini Sood praised James's valour and recounted bits from how the rescue operation was carried out.
"The hospital staff broke the glasses of the NICU ward to evacuate the babies. It was then Nurse Megha's salwar caught fire. Instead of caring for her safety, she stayed there to rescue the babies and handed them over to people outside," she said.
Sood said James is currently undergoing treatment at the same medical college. She said she did not know the extent of her burns.
"The rescued babies were shifted to a ward very close to the NICU ward… When I recall the scene, I feel like crying," she said.
Dr Anshul Jain, the head of the anaesthesiology department at the medical college, explained the standard rescue operation and claimed the hospital followed the protocol to the T.
"In the triage process during an ICU evacuation, the policy is to evacuate less-affected patients first. The rationale behind this approach is that patients requiring minimal support can be relocated quickly, enabling a larger number of evacuations to be completed in a shorter time.
"In contrast, patients on ventilators or requiring high oxygen support demand more time and resources for evacuation," he said.
"This principle was successfully implemented in Jhansi, playing a significant role in saving many lives," Jain said.
A newborn rescued from the fire died due to illness on Sunday, Jhansi District Magistrate Avinash Kumar said.
