Hindustan Times News | 16th March 2022 | 8 AM

HT Daily News Wrap

China's new claim on PLA disengagement in eastern Ladakh’s Hot Spring area, India acts to seize gap in the wheat export market, Sonia Gandhi asks Congress heads of five states to resign post-Assembly poll debacle & other top news in this bulletin.
China has said for the first time that soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have disengaged in the Hot Spring area of Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, though people familiar with the matter said not all areas of contention in this sector have been cleared. The Chinese foreign ministry told HT that China is working closely with India to reach an acceptable solution to the standoff in eastern Ladakh “as soon as possible”, and claimed that troop disengagement has taken place at Galwan Valley, Pangong Lake and Hot Spring. Despite numerous rounds of diplomatic and military talks over the past two years, the two nations have been unable to end the nearly 22-month standoff. India has only acknowledged disengagement of front line forces on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Lake and at Gogra. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday peace talks were sounding more realistic but more time was needed, as Russian air strikes killed five people in the capital Kyiv and the refugee tally from Moscow’s invasion reached 3 million. Moscow has not captured any of Ukraine’s 10 biggest cities following its incursion that began on Feb. 24, the largest assault on a European state since 1945. Ukrainian officials have raised hopes the war could end sooner than expected, possibly by May, saying Moscow may be coming to terms with its failure to impose a new government by force and running out of fresh troops. “The meetings continue, and, I am informed, the positions during the negotiations already sound more realistic. But time is still needed for the decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said in a video address on Wednesday, ahead of the next round of talks. In a hint of a possible compromise, Zelenskiy said earlier Ukraine was prepared to accept security guarantees from the West that stop short of its long-term goal of joining NATO. Moscow sees any future Ukraine membership of the Western alliance as a threat and has demanded guarantees it will never join. Inoculation of children against Covid-19 in the 12-15 age cohort will begin on Wednesday and initially take place only at government vaccination centres across India till Biological E, the maker of Corbevax, announces the price of its vaccine for the private sector, according to people familiar with the matter. “For now, it will be available only at government vaccination facilities,” a central government official said on condition of anonymity. “Once the company (Biological E) notifies its rate for private hospitals, as was done by Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech, then private hospitals can also procure and its vaccine will also be available at private Covid vaccination centres.” Covid-19 vaccination will be open for all children born on or before March 15, 2010, the government said in its guidelines issued on Tuesday. Earlier, children born on or before 2007 were allowed to take the shots under the national immunisation programme. India is rolling out ambitious measures over the coming weeks to try to establish the country a dominant exporter of high-quality wheat as importers scramble for supplies following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, two government sources said. The measures, which should be implemented over the course of around two weeks, include ensuring government-approved laboratories test the quality of wheat for export, making extra rail wagons available for transport and working with port authorities to give priority to wheat exports. India, the world’s biggest wheat producer after China, has been pursuing deals to export wheat and take advantage of surplus stocks at home and a sharp rise in global prices. It sees the disruption caused by the conflict involving Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter and Ukraine, another leading supplier, as an opportunity to sell its wheat on the world market. Congress president Sonia Gandhi Tuesday asked chiefs of its Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur units to resign amid continued rumblings in the party following its abject loss in the assembly elections in these states. The sabre rattling in the Congress, meanwhile, intensified as Gandhi family loyalists lashed out at their colleague Kapil Sibal for his remarks that the Gandhis should step aside and pave the way for some other leader at the helm, accusing him of speaking the language of the BJP and the RSS. The axe fell on the Congress’s satraps, including its Punjab president Navjot Singh Sidhu, two days after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) brainstormed about the reasons for the party’s debacle in the latest round of state assembly polls. The Congress failed to wrest the four BJP-ruled states and lost Punjab to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). “Congress President, Smt. Sonia Gandhi has asked the PCC Presidents of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur to put in their resignations in order to facilitate reorganisation of PCCs,” chief spokesperson for the party Randeep Surjewala said on Twitter.