China Starts Building Another Bridge Across Pangong Lake

HT Daily News Wrap

China starts building another bridge across Pangong Lake, US reports 1st monkeypox case of 2022, Chethana Raj death: Bengaluru clinic had no license for fat-loss surgery, says official, follow rules or exit the country, minister tells VPN service providers, and other top news this bulletin.
China has begun constructing a second bridge across the Pangong Lake that will be capable of accommodating heavy armoured vehicles, months after completing another bridge in the same region that is claimed by India. The second bridge is being constructed parallel to the first bridge, which is narrower and was completed in April this year. The first bridge is being used to move equipment such as cranes needed to build the second one, according to experts who analysed the latest high-resolution satellite imagery of the site. When reports about the construction of the first bridge linking the north and south banks of the strategic Pangong Lake emerged in January, the external affairs ministry said the structure is located in areas under illegal occupation by China for 60 years. The ministry’s spokesperson, Arindam Bagchi, said then that India has never accepted such illegal occupation. Damien Symon, an analyst with The Intel Lab who tweets as @detresfa_, said an analysis of satellite imagery suggested that work on the first bridge – which he described as a “service bridge” – had been wrapped up by April. “Cranes were seen on site earlier as well, supporting preparations for the entire project,” he said. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health on Wednesday said it had confirmed a single case of monkeypox virus infection in a man who had recently traveled to Canada. The state agency said it was working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and relevant local boards of health to carry out contact tracing, adding that “the case poses no risk to the public, and the individual is hospitalized and in good condition.” Monkeypox, which mostly occurs in west and central Africa, is a rare viral infection similar to human smallpox, though milder. It was first recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1970s. The number of cases in West Africa has increased in the last decade. Symptoms include fever, headaches and skin rashes starting on the face and spreading to the rest of the body. The Massachusetts agency said the virus does not spread easily between people, but transmission can occur through contact with body fluids, monkeypox sores, items such as bedding or clothing that have been contaminated with fluids or sores, or through respiratory droplets following prolonged face-to-face contact. It said no monkeypox cases had previously been identified in the United States this year. Texas and Maryland each reported a case in 2021 in people with recent travel to Nigeria. The district health officer of Bengaluru Urban has served a notice to Shetty’s Cosmetic Centre, where 21-year-old Kannada actor Chethana Raj underwent the fat removal surgery. The district health officer said the cosmetic centre had no licence for the procedure (fat loss surgery) they did on the actor. It only had the licence to run as a polyclinic and dispensary. “They need to submit a written explanation of this incident. If they don’t respond, necessary action will be taken,” Bengaluru DHO said to news agency ANI. Chethana Raj’s family alleged negligence on the part of the hospital as the actor developed breathing difficulties following her fat-removal surgery on May 16. From Shetty’s Cosmetic Centre, the actor was moved to another hospital where she was declared brought dead after 45 minutes. The actor’s parents were in dark about her fat-loss surgery as Chethana Raj went to Shetty’s Cosmetic Centre with some friends and got admitted at around 8.30am. The parents said they went to the hospital after Chethana was taken to the operation theatre. Initially, they were told that the operation would take two hours but she was finally discharged at 5pm, but as she developed breathing difficulties, the clinic staff shifted her to another hospital. “If his (cosmetic) hospital had the facilities, like an ICU, she would have survived. The wait at the hospital and then shifted her to another hospital resulted in the death,” said Chethana Raj’s father Varadaraju. Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday that while he voted for Democrats in the past, he will now vote for Republicans. “In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican,” he tweeted. “Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold,” said Musk, the world’s richest man, who has agreed to buy Twitter Inc. The 50-year-old billionaire recently said he would reverse Twitter’s ban on former US President Donald Trump, a Republican, when he buys the social media platform. He also said Twitter is far-left-biased because it is headquartered in California, a state known for its progressive politics. Musk has been a vocal critic of the Biden administration and Democrats for their proposals to tax billionaires and give more tax incentives to union-made electric vehicles. Tesla does not have unions at its U.S. factories. Last year, Tesla, which counts California as its biggest market in the United States, moved its headquarters from California to the more politically conservative Texas. Virtual private network service providers that are not ready to comply with the new guidelines have the only option to exit from India, minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday. The minister, while releasing FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) on the recent directive on reporting of cyber breach incidents, said that every well meaning company or entity understands that a safe and trusted internet is going to help it. “There is no opportunity for somebody to say we will not follow the rules and laws of India. If you don’t have the logs, start maintaining the logs. If you are a VPN that wants to hide and be anonymous about those who use its VPN and you don’t want to go by these rules, if you want to pull out, then frankly you have no other opportunity but to pull out,” he said. The ministry of electronics and IT has mandated cloud service providers, VPN (Virtual Private Network) firms, data centre companies and virtual private server providers to store users’ data for at least five years. Some of the VPN companies have claimed that the new rule may lead to cyber security loopholes in the system — an argument which was rejected by the minister. Chandrasekhar said that the government is also not going to make any change in the rules on mandating entities to report cyber breach in their system within six hours of learning about it.