From the Newsroom: Amit Shah tests Covid-19 positive

In today's episode, Union Home minister Amit Shah has said that he had tested positive for coronavirus; Senior military commanders of India and China start the fifth round of talks; The National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted searches at the residence of Delhi University professor Hany Babu on Sunday; The mid-day meals provided to students in government or aided schools should be supplemented by breakfast, the new National Education Policy (NEP) has proposed; Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday said people may seek Prime Minister Narendra Modi's resignation if problems like job losses are not resolved and The BBMP is ready to issue certificates to residents of containment zones should they need them to take leave from work, the civic body's chief N Manjunatha Prasad has said.

Here are the top news of today, Sunday: August 2, 2020:

Union Home minister Amit Shah has said that he had tested positive for coronavirus and has been admitted to hospital.

"I request all of you who came in contact with me in the last few days to isolate yourselves and get tested," Shah said in a tweet.

As the senior military commanders of India and China started the fifth round of talks today, India is likely to insist on “early and complete” withdrawal of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers from the new areas they occupied on the northern bank of the Pangong Tso (lake) since May 5.

The meeting between the senior military commanders of the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA is taking place even as New Delhi is worried over Beijing’s latest move to claim the entire area between “Finger 5” to “Finger 8” on the northern bank of the Pangong Tso.

The Indian Army will also ask the Chinese PLA to completely withdraw its troops from the face-off scenes at Gogra Post, Depsang Y junction and other face-off scenes along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) – the de facto boundary between the two nations – to restart and expeditiously conclude the “disengagement process”, which the two sides had agreed upon and started early last month, but remained stalled for the past couple of weeks.

Lt Gen Harinder Singh, General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 14 corps of the Indian Army, is holding another round of meeting with his counterpart Maj Gen Liu Lin of the Chinese PLA at Chushul-Moldo point on the LAC.

They earlier had four meetings to resolve the stand-off along the disputed boundary between the two nations – on June 6, June 22, June 30 and July 14.

The fifth round of meeting between Lt Gen Singh and Maj Gen Liu is taking place three days after China’s ambassador to India, Sun Weidong, for the first time officially asserted the communist country’s claim on the northern bank of the Pangong Tso.

The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) had recruited three powerful warlords, including Ahmad Shah Massoud, in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion and the US-Pakistan proxy war there, a new book on India's external spy agency has said.

The book 'RAW: A History of India’s Covert Operations' by investigative journalist Yatish Yadav, however, did not disclose the identity of two other warlords, as they still occupy positions in Afghanistan politics.

At least three RAW spies involved in covert action in Afghanistan have claimed that Afghan armed forces were "demoralised and divided, remained practically inactive" during the Soviet army’s December 1979 invasion, the book, which will be released tomorrow, said.

The book, which provides details of RAW operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the mujahideen sought to fill this gap aided by the ISI agents. The CIA's partnership with ISI was a "serious concern" for India and RAW needed allies to counter the unlikely partnership of mujahideen and the Pakistan spy agency.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) today conducted searches at the residence of Delhi University professor Hany Babu, who was arrested in connection with Bhima Koregaon case, in Uttar Pradesh's Noida.

The NIA team, including two women personnel, arrived at Babu's residence in Noida, near Delhi, at around 7:30 AM and left at around 10:30 AM.

Jenny Rowena, a lecturer in Miranda House College in Delhi and Babu's wife said the investigating team told her that they were conducting the searches to collect evidence in the case against Babu (54), who was arrested on July 28 in Mumbai.

She said some pamphlets of G N Saibaba Defence Committee of which Babu was part of, pen drives and a computer hard-disk.

The NIA had accused Babu of propagating Naxal activities and Maoist ideology and was a co-conspirator with other arrested accused in the Bhima Koregaon case. Earlier, human rights activists and academicians including Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Rona Wilson, Mahesh Raut, Sudhir Dhawale, P Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira were arrested.

The mid-day meals provided to students in government or aided schools should be supplemented by breakfast, the new National Education Policy (NEP) has proposed.

The policy which was approved by the Union Cabinet earlier this week has noted that morning hours after a nutritious breakfast can be particularly productive for the study of cognitively more demanding subjects and hence recommended expansion of the mid-day meal scheme to include provisions for breakfast in schools.

"Children are unable to learn optimally when they are undernourished or unwell. Hence, the nutrition and health (including mental health) of children will be addressed, through healthy meals and the introduction of well-trained social workers, counsellors, and community involvement into the schooling system," the policy said.

"Furthermore, research shows that the morning hours after a nutritious breakfast can be particularly productive for the study of cognitively more demanding subjects and hence these hours may be leveraged by providing a simple but energizing breakfast in addition to mid-day meals," it added.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday said people may seek Prime Minister Narendra Modi's resignation if problems like job losses are not resolved.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, 10 crore people have lost their livelihood and the crisis has affected 40 crore families, Raut claimed in his weekly column 'Rokthok' in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana'.

Salaried middle-class people have lost their jobs, while the trade and industry have suffered losses to the tune of about Rs four lakh crore, the Rajya Sabha member said.

"There is a limit to people's patience. They cannot just survive on hope and assurances. Even the prime minister will agree that even though Lord Ram's 'vanvas' (exile) has ended, the present situation is difficult. No one had ever felt so insecure about their lives," Raut said.

"Israel is witnessing protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and there are demands for his resignation over the failure to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis. India, too, could witness the same," he said.

Taking a dig at the Centre, Raut listed its "measures" to contain the coronavirus situation and the "economic crisis".

The BBMP is ready to issue certificates to residents of containment zones should they need them to take leave from work, the civic body’s chief N Manjunatha Prasad has said.

At a meeting of workers from the Radhakrishna Temple ward on Saturday, Prasad said booth-level teams would issue the certificates that employees of government and private companies can submit to take leave from work. The BBMP will also survey zones and provide essentials to the residents.

Prasad instructed booth-level committees to conduct a household survey to identify patients suffering from SARI, ILI, having co-morbidities as well as senior citizens. These committees will monitor patients in home isolation as the home-quarantined primary contacts of patients