Category: Uncategorized

  • Sindh govt to pay daily wage labourers through mobile app

    Sindh govt to pay daily wage labourers through mobile app

    The Sindh government will pay daily wage labourers who have no work these days due to the coronavirus lockdown through a mobile wallet application. The money will be given against their CNIC number and labourers will be able to get their money by showing their ID card and phone at mobile shops.

    Registration requests are being submitted and the government has asked NADRA, the FIA, FBR and State Bank for help verifying them.

    People who have travelled abroad, except for Hajj or pilgrimages and those with over Rs10,000 in their bank accounts will not be eligible for this money.

    Daily wage workers have been out of work since the coronavirus lockdown. The government promised to provide them rations. Sindh has reported 502 cases so far.

  • Seven people quarantine themselves on a tree in India

    Seven people quarantine themselves on a tree in India

    Seven migrant workers, who came back home to West Bengal’s Purulia district from Chennai amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown, perched on a banyan tree to remain in quarantine in the absence of separate room for self-isolation in their small huts, Gulf News reported.

    After several days in their ‘temporary home’, the workers were on Saturday ordered to come down by the local administration.

    The workers, all residents of Bangidiha village of Purulia district, said as they live in one-room mud huts with their families, there is no way they can keep themselves in isolation.

    However, none of them have displayed symptoms linked to COVID-19, nor have they undergone any test for the disease.

    “At present we don’t have any health issues. But in case we are detected positive for the disease at a later date, then at least none of the villagers will be infected because of us,” said one of the workers Bijay Singh Laya.

    The workers reached Kharagpur junction station on Sunday last from Chennai where they underwent thermal screening and tests but the doctors did not find any symptom of the disease. “However, they asked us to stay in quarantine for 14 days as a safety measure”.

    “But we don’t have any separate personal room in our home. So, we decided to live on the branches of the banyan tree just outside our village,” he said.

    The seven labourers tied their beds to the branches of the tree, and used a mosquito net to prevent themselves from getting bitten.

    Their family members brought them a daily ration of rice, pulses, and vegetables, along with other cooking implements and left after keeping those under the tree, while strictly maintaining the norms of social distancing.

    “We get down from the tree, cook, and then go up again,” said one of the workers.

    Villagers on their part kept night vigil by turn to ensure the tree-dwellers are not devoured by wild animals from the nearby forest or bitten by venomous snakes.

    However, when the matter came to the attention of the local administration they asked the workers to return to their village.

  • Coronavirus: Pakistani celebrities step up to help those in need

    As the coronavirus lockdown puts a halt to all economic activities in the country. Those most affected by the lockdown and pandemic are daily wage workers who have no work in this lockdown. In these stressful and challenging times, Pakistani celebrities including Maya Ali, Shahid Afridi, Anoushey Ashraf, Nomi Ansari, Aisam ul Haq Qureshi and Asim Jofa among others have stepped forward to help those in need. Check out their initiatives below:

    Maya Ali

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-KGnBYHihv/
    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-SUBpKn88o/

    Hira Mani and Mani

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-QfM7on4JU/

    Nomi Ansari and Anoushey Ashraf

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-AFRdCDWcg/

    Aisam ul Haq Qureshi and Shiza Hassan

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-IO8NKJP3H/

    Shahid Afridi

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B9_4hojlMQS/
    https://twitter.com/SAfridiOfficial/status/1241363432923947008?s=20
    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-R3pF7let5/

    Sana Safinaz

    Ali Zafar

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-Pi9BIlyhk/
  • Fake tweets about animals in Venice amid corona lockdown go viral

    Fake tweets about animals in Venice amid corona lockdown go viral

    Bogus stories of wild animals flourishing in quarantined cities gives false hope — and viral fame.

    Scattered amid a relentless barrage of news about coronavirus cases, quarantine and medical news on Twitter, some happy stories softened the blows: Swans had returned to deserted Venetian canals. Dolphins too. And a group of elephants had sauntered through a village in Yunnan, China, gotten drunk off corn wine, and passed out in a tea garden.

    These reports of wildlife triumphs in countries hard-hit by the novel coronavirus got hundreds of thousands of retweets. They went viral on Instagram and Tik Tok. They made news headlines. If there’s a silver lining of the pandemic, people said, this was it— animals were bouncing back, running free in a humanless world.

    But it wasn’t real.

    The swans in the viral posts regularly appear in the canals of Burano, a small island in the greater Venice metropolitan area, where the photos were taken. The “Venetian” dolphins were filmed at a port in Sardinia, in the Mediterranean Sea, hundreds of miles away. No one has figured out where the drunken elephant photos came from, but a Chinese news report debunked the viral posts: While elephants did recently come through a village in Yunnan Province, China, their presence isn’t out of the norm, they aren’t the elephants in the viral photos, and they didn’t get drunk and pass out in a tea field.

  • Boy who licked a toilet seat in viral video has coronavirus

    Boy who licked a toilet seat in viral video has coronavirus

    Social-media influencer Larz told his followers he was in a hospital after catching the coronavirus. The news came just a few days after he filmed himself licking a toilet seat in a public bathroom as part of a bizarre ‘Coronavirus Challenge’.

    The 21-year-old from California tweeted: “I tested positive for Coronavirus,” according to the Daily Mail, but his Twitter account @GayShawnMendes has now been suspended.

    He also uploaded a video to his Instagram account that appears to show him lying in a hospital bed and “doped up” on medication. His Instagram page is also full of badly edited photographs of him hanging out with celebrities, so his claims should be taken with a pinch of salt.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-LaoztB34y/?igshid=w73ji8tfc5cn

    The challenge started as an obvious ploy for attention from the TikTok and Instagram influencer Ava Louise. She filmed herself licking an airplane toilet seat, adding the caption: “Please RT this so people can know how to properly be sanitary on the airplane.”

    She told Insider she did it for “clout” because she didn’t want the coronavirus getting more attention than her. She added that “hot blondes” could recover from anything so there was “no harm done”.

    In a follow-up video called “Why I licked the toilet seat, now I’m running for president,” Ava Louise said she was trolling the mainstream media with the stunt and the toilet seat she licked was on a private plane.

    Another tasteless — and dangerous — prank some young wannabe influencers are taking part in is coughing on produce in supermarkets, according to the New York Post.

    One 26-year-old man, named Cody Pfister, was charged with making a terrorist threat after filming himself licking a shelf of toiletries in Walmart on March 11, the Daily Mail reported.

  • Indian ‘super spreader’ guru leads to 40,000 quarantines

    Indian ‘super spreader’ guru leads to 40,000 quarantines

    At least 40,000 people who may have caught the coronavirus from a ‘super-spreader’ guru are under strict quarantine in 20 villages of Indian Punjab after linked to just one man.

    According to BBC, the 70-year-old guru, Baldev Singh, had returned from a trip to Europe’s virus epicentre Italy and Germany when he went preaching in more than a dozen villages in Punjab state. The 70-year-old died of coronavirus — a fact found out only after his death, according to the BBC.

    The guru and his two associates — who have also tested positive — ignored self-isolation orders on their return from Europe, and were on their preaching tour until Singh fell ill and died. He had visited a large gathering to celebrate the Sikh festival of Hola Mohalla shortly before he died. The six-day festival attracts around 10,000 people every day.

    A week after his death, 19 of his relatives have tested positive.

    India has 640 confirmed cases of the virus, of which 30 are in Punjab. However, experts worry that the real number of positive cases could be far higher given that the South Asian country has one of the lowest testing rates in the world. There are fears that an outbreak in the country of 1.3 billion people could result in a catastrophe.

  • Coronavirus: ‘Military sidelined PM Imran to enforce countrywide lockdown,’ NYT claims

    A report in The New York Times has claimed that the military “sidelined Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan to enforce a countrywide lockdown” last week as the coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan worsened while the premier rejected calls from healthcare workers and provincial officials to enforce the same, saying it would ruin the economy.

    “[Imran] Khan rejected calls from healthcare workers and provincial officials to enforce a lockdown, saying it would ruin the economy. Instead, he urged citizens to practice social distancing and ordered everyone back to work, many returning to the sweltering, cramped factories that are the backbone of the economy,” the report said.

    It added, “Finally, the military stepped in on Sunday and sidelined Khan, working with provincial governments to deploy across the country and enforce a lockdown. They erected a maze of military checkpoints in cities like Karachi and sent baton-wielding police officers to violently disperse crowds.”

    While the report suggested that the action might be too late, it is pertinent to note that governments of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Punjab had last Sunday sought the army’s help in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, asking it to assist civil institutions as the number of confirmed cases in the country crossed 600. The requests had come a day after the Sindh government’s decision to impose a complete lockdown and seek military help under Article 245 of the Constitution.

    The 18th Amendment provides the provinces with significant decision-making autonomy. While Sindh imposed a lockdown on March 23 and requisitioned the army to help carry it out, other provinces followed with varying levels of the halt.

    The Interior Ministry had approved the deployment of the army across the provinces and Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) Major General Babar Iftikhar had on Monday confirmed Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s directions for troops and medical resources to be deployed “as per need” in order to contain the spread of the new coronavirus.

    Addressing a press briefing, the military spokesperson had said that the government summoned army for assistance in accordance with the constitution. “This is the time to take tough and difficult decisions on an individual, familial and societal basis.”

    Click here for latest COVID-19 updates from Pakistan and around the world

  • COVID-19: Colony in Lahore under lockdown after massive increase in cases?

    Residents of Lahore’s Imamia Colony claim that the area has been sealed off by the police amid “a massive increase in the COVID-19 cases” as authorities told them to not leave their houses; however, both the government and police deny doing so.

    Reports quoted locals as saying that amid an increasing number of coronavirus cases in Punjab, especially Lahore, the government had put the residential area in the provincial capital under lockdown. They claimed that a fatality was also reported in the locality and the health department was “downplaying the situation”.

    The government, they said, had failed to screen people returning from Iran which led to the outbreak in the colony.

    “The health department is hiding the actual number of the cases,” the residents claimed, urging higher-ups to take notice of the cases.

    According to an audio clip viral on social media, a purported sub-inspector stationed at Shahdara Police Station could be heard telling someone to stay away from Imamia Colony due to a higher number of cases there. As per the clip, a patient also died of the virus and at least 80 per cent were infected in the colony.

    Shahdara Police denied this and said they didn’t seal the area, whereas the health secretary and his spokesperson remained unavailable despite many calls.

    Punjab government spokesperson Mussarat Jamsheed said it was all rumours. “All the areas are under observation and we are not hiding anything from the public,” the official said while asking people not to panic.

  • VIDEO: PM Imran Khan rubbishes Maria B’s claims

    Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that does not know anything about designer Maria B and her husband’s case in which the couple was accused of criminal negligence after they sent their cook, tested positive for COVID-19, back to his village in Vehari.

    VIDEO: Renowned designer Maria B’s husband reportedly arrested for ‘criminal negligence’

    Speaking to journalists in a media talk, when asked why Maria B’s husband was given bail, PM Imran said, “I have no idea about this case. Neither do I know anything about it. And neither did anyone contact me.”

    He continued, “You are saying the right thing but you need to understand that this [coronavirus] is a new thing. People don’t know much about it. It will take them time to understand the gravity of the situation.”

    Watch video:

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-PelNEJRVO/

    Earlier it was being speculated that PM Imran had helped Maria B’s husband secure bail after Maria after she thanked him and the army in her clarification video, which has since then been deleted. While Maria B and her husband claim that they were harassed by the police, the police say that the couple sent back their ill cook to his village despite knowing that he had been tested positive for COVID-19. The police added that the cook travelled by public transport possibly infecting thousands. They also had to quarantine his village in order to ensure that no one other person had contracted the virus.

    In case you missed it, watch Maria and her husband’s clarification here:

    https://www.facebook.com/730157957365626/videos/555220218435492/
  • ‘Ishrat – Made in China’ cast & crew stranded in Thailand

    ‘Ishrat – Made in China’ cast & crew stranded in Thailand

    The cast and crew of the upcoming film Ishrat – Made in China are stranded in Thailand due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

    Speaking to multiple media outlets, Shamoon Abbasi confirmed that he and other members of the cast including Sanam Saeed, Sara Loran and Mohib Mirza are stuck in Thailand along with their crew. He said that due to the non-availability of flights and closure of airspaces across the world, including Pakistan, they were unable to come back home. He added that they have requested Pakistani authorities to facilitate them.

    Meanwhile, other members of the cast such as Mani and Hasan Sheheryar Yasin had returned to Pakistan before the country was put under lockdown.

    Earlier, Abbasi had shared a video of himself at Dubai airport while heading to Thailand, asserting that there is no need to panic.

    https://www.instagram.com/tv/B9pS1-4piZr/?utm_source=ig_embed

    Read more – Amid coronavirus pandemic, Pakistani actors head to Thailand for film shoot

    Ishrat – Made in China will mark the directorial debut of Mohib Mirza. The lead cast includes Sanam Saeed, Shamoon Abbasi and Mani among others. No further details about the project have been revealed as yet.