While only passengers from China and Hong Kong were being screened in January, the screening was expanded in early February to include Thailand and Singapore. Italy was included only on 26 February, when it still had 322 infections. Even then, other European countries were not included, said the RTI reply received by activist Saket Gokhale on 11 May.

I’d filed an RTI asking how many incoming intl’ passengers were screened at airports between 15 Jan-18 Mar.

Modi govt says 15,24,266 passengers were screened.

DGCA stats say total intl’ passenger traffic Jan-Mar is 78.4 lacs

INDIA SCREENED ONLY 19% OF ARRIVING PASSENGERS. pic.twitter.com/Nb5oy71Vlz

— Saket Gokhale (@SaketGokhale) May 14, 2020

Universal screening began only on 4 March, when the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that global infections had crossed 93,000, with over 14,000 infections outside China.

India shut down all air travel on 23 March, nearly two months after it saw its first confirmed Covid-19 case on 30 January. The nationwide lockdown was imposed on 25 March.

Some health experts told ThePrint that the Covid-19 crisis could have been averted in India had the screening ambit been widened earlier, blaming air travel for the spike in cases. In a conversation with ThePrint’s Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on the digital Off The Cuff last month, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan had pointed out that a lot of infection cases sneaked into the country in late February and early March, even as she lauded the government response in tackling the crisis. Other experts also highlighted the need to keep livelihoods in mind.

In a tweet on 15 March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, “We started screening entry into India from mid-January itself, while also gradually increasing restrictions on travel. The step-by-step approach has helped avoid panic.”

We started screening entry into India from mid-January itself, while also gradually increasing restrictions on travel.
​The step-by-step approach has helped avoid panic: PM @narendramodi #SAARCfightsCorona

— PMO India (@PMOIndia) March 15, 2020

ThePrint reached out to the Ministry of Civil Aviation through a phone call and WhatsApp message, but it refused to comment on this report. However, sources in the ministry said it was only following the directions of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

“Passengers from Europe initially Exempted”

According to the RTI reply from the Directorate General of Health Services, over 15 lakh passengers — 15,24,266 passengers to be exact — were screened between 15 January and 23 March. During this period, over 78.4 lakh passengers arrived in India, said the data from Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

The response laid out the details of the screening process as it was carried out.

On 17 January, only passengers from China and Hong Kong were being screened at three Indian airports — Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata. Four days later, this was expanded to include four other airports — Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi and Bengaluru, but passengers from other countries were not included.

By this time, the WHO had already announced that there were 282 confirmed Covid-19 cases, with four cases outside China.

On 2 February, passengers coming in from Thailand and Singapore were also brought under the screening process. At this time, global infections had touched 14,557 with 146 cases outside China.

On 12 February, screening had been extended to 21 Indian airports and passengers from Japan and South Korea were also being screened. Global infections stood at 45,171 across 24 countries then.

It was only on 26 February that the passengers coming from Italy were started to be screened, but passengers from other European countries were exempted. According to the WHO data, infections had already spread to 37 countries and were nearing 400 cases in Europe alone as of 26 February.

India began universal screening across all airports for all international passengers on 4 March. By this time, the country already had 44 confirmed Covid-19 cases, while the global infections were nearing 1 lakh across 76 countries.

The RTI reply also said that in the period between 15 January and 23 March, outgoing international passengers and domestic passengers were also not screened.

“Waves of infection from Europe”

As India’s current number of infections nears 1 lakh, some health experts told ThePrint that this emergency could have been avoided if more people had been screened early on.

“India should have cut off international travel completely for six months at least when the first case surfaced. Spike in cases was because of free-for-all travel,” said Dr S.K. Sadhukhan, professor of epidemiology, All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata.

On 25 April, the WHO had lauded India’s response to the pandemic saying the government’s actions managed to prevent an exponential growth of infections. But it highlighted that a lot of cases came in from Europe in late February.

“A lot of people who came back from Europe brought in later waves of infections in late Feb-March, and then there were too many contacts,” WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan had said on Off The Cuff.

However, some other experts said the point about the ambit of screening can be made in hindsight but public health policy also has to consider other factors like lives and livelihoods.

“Our strongest tool always is widespread screening. In hindsight, we can say we should have screened passengers from Europe since many cases were coming from there but apart from South Korea and Taiwan, no other country had started large scale screening.

India widely responded to WHO directives and guidelines,” said Dr Preeti Kumar, vice president, health systems support, Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by CineBuster staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The post Lack Of Governance: India Had Only Screened 19% Of Inbound Passengers For Covid Until 23 March, Reveals RTI Reply Hide quoted text first appeared on Latest News, Breaking News, National News, World News, India News, Bollywood News, Business News, Politics News, Sports News, Entertainment News - CineBuster.

A “write-off” is an accounting term used to denote assets whose value becomes zero. Written-off loans refer to debt that has been factored as a loss even though the lender may continue attempts to recover it.

Fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi’s company Gitanjali Gems tops the list of these defaulters with Rs 5,492 crore. Choksi’s other firms Gili India and Nakshatra Brands also have loans of Rs 1,447 and Rs 1,109 crore respectively written off.

He is followed by REI Agro with Rs 4,314 crore and Winsome Diamonds with Rs 4,076 crore.

Rotomac Global Private Limited owes Rs 2,850 crore which have been written off followed by Kudos Chemie Ltd with Rs 2,326 crore, Ruchi Soya Industries Limited, now owned by Yoga guru Ramdev’s Patanjali, with Rs 2,212 crore and Zoom Developers Pvt Ltd with Rs 2,012 crore.

Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines figures in the list at number 9, with outstanding of Rs 1,943 crore which have been written off by the banks.

Forever Precious Jewellery and Diamonds Private Limited has loans of Rs 1,962 crore written off while Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited have Rs 1,915 crore written off loans.

REI Agro of Jhunjhunwala brothers is already being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate or ED. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and ED are also probing alleged frauds by the owners of Winsome Diamonds.

Vikram Kothari’s Rotomac is the fourth in the list. He and his son Rahul Kothari were arrested by the CBI in 2018.

The list was cited by the Congress on Tuesday to attack the government. Party leader Rahul Gandhi accused the government of “hiding” the names because they included “friends” of the ruling BJP.

“I asked a simple question in parliament – tell me the names of 50 biggest bank scammers. Finance Minister refused to reply. Now RBI has put names of Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and other BJP friends in the list. This is why they hid the truth from parliament,” Mr Gandhi tweeted in Hindi along with a video.

संसद में मैंने एक सीधा सा प्रश्न पूछा था- मुझे देश के 50 सबसे बड़े बैंक चोरों के नाम बताइए।

वित्तमंत्री ने जवाब देने से मना कर दिया।

अब RBI ने नीरव मोदी, मेहुल चोकसी सहित भाजपा के ‘मित्रों’ के नाम बैंक चोरों की लिस्ट में डाले हैं।

इसीलिए संसद में इस सच को छुपाया गया। pic.twitter.com/xVAkxrxyVM

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 28, 2020

In his application, RTI activist Saket Gokhale had sought the list of defaulters as on February 16, but the RBI said the requested information is not available. The RBI also said the data was provided by banks and that information on borrowers abroad is exempted from public disclosure.

This is why Finance Minister @nsitharaman tried to escape from a straight & clear question asked by Rahul Gandhi.

Sadly – the truth can never stay hidden too long.

Massive kudos to RG for calling the govt’s bluff way back in March!

PS: Here’s the list if anyone missed it https://t.co/OA4moYdTYz pic.twitter.com/JsaoBewhBT

— Saket Gokhale (@SaketGokhale) April 28, 2020

The Indian banking system is reeling under over 10 lakh crore in bad debt, according to news agency Reuters, that has been brought into sharp focus after a number of incidents of billionaires fleeing the country to escape prosecution in recent years and disastrous financial crises at high-profile institutions.

The post Mehul Choksi Tops RBI List Of Defaulters Who Owe Nearly Rs 70,000 Crore first appeared on Latest News, Breaking News, National News, World News, India News, Bollywood News, Business News, Politics News, Sports News, Entertainment News - CineBuster.