Chennai Rates Diesel/l Rs.68.22 Gold (24k) Rs.4651/gm Petrol/l Rs 75.54 Silver Rs.52.50/gm CHENNAI Saturday 06-6-2020 VOL. 25 No.326 PAGES 4 ` 4.00  NATIONAL DAILY FOR THE PEOPLE  Regd. No.TN/.CC (S) DN/134/18-20 RNI Regd.No. 62432/1995 TN PMG(CCR)/WPP no 676/18-20 Tirumala temple to open for devotees from Monday, issues guidelines Chief Minister inaugurates ‘Luminous Tamil Nadu’, CII’s virtual programme State remains a favoured destination for industries Chennai, June 6: Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami today inaugurated a session on ‘Luminous Tamil Nadu’, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The event was held via videoconference. The conference focused on ways to take the State’s economy forward and attract more investments into Tamil Nadu. Chief Minister Palaniswami delivered the inaugural address and released a book on Tamil Nadu’s industrial prowess. Speaking at the conference, Chief Minister said, “The government is taking numerous measures to ensure Tamil Nadu remains a favoured destination for industries.” To encourage the manufacture of Corona prevention medicines in Tamil Nadu, I announced several incentives to the companies who come forward to manufacture corona medicines. To several companies in Tamil Nadu manufactures corona med- icines and distributing all over India. In view of livelihood of the people and continuous growth of Industries the government is announced relaxations in lockdown. Chief Minister appreciated the industries which is following the rules strictly and safety measures. As per the Elara Securities survey, Tamil Nadu is among 5 states are leading in the recovery of the economy. Tamil Nadu have experienced a quick recovery and restart in economic activities, based on power consumption, movement of traffic, availability of farm products at wholesale markets and Google mobility data. This is the certificate for Tamil Nadu’s visionary efforts, industries continues effort. CORUS To provide helping hand to MSME units to face the prevailing challenge against Covid 19, we have announced a special package COVID Relief and Upliftment Scheme (CORUS) to ease the fund flow to meet emergent fund requirements for expenses related to capital expenditure and working capital needs. The government has allocated Rs. 200 for this project. So far, the government disbursed Rs. 120 crores to 955 firms. I have also urged bankers to extend loans liberally to the key sectors of the economy that were hampered by the pandemic and related developments. 17 MoUs The Tamil Nadu government signed 17 Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) involving an investment of Rs 15,128 crore having a potential to generate about 47,150 jobs. The MoUs were signed with companies that are already operating in the state like Daimler India Commercial Vehicles and also with new investors. The investing companies are from Germany, Finland, Taiwan, China, France, South Korea, New Delhi, June 6: India went past Italy to become the sixth worsthit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic with the country registering a record single-day spike of 9,887 cases which pushed the nationwide tally to 2,36,657. India’s death toll due to COVID-19 rose to6,642 with a record increase of 294 deaths in the 24 hours till Saturday 8 AM. India has registered over 9,000 cases for the third day in a row. India is now the sixth worst-affected nation in terms of coronavirus infection cases after the US, Brazil, Russia, Spain and the UK, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 1,15,942, while 1,14,072 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, the Union Health Ministry said. “Thus, around 48.20 per cent patients have recovered so far,” a senior health ministry official said. The total confirmed cases include foreigners. Of the 294 deaths reported since Friday morning, 139 were in Maharashtra, 58 in Delhi, 35 in Gujarat, 12 each in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, 11 in West Bengal, eight in Telangana, seven in Madhya Pradesh, five in Rajasthan, two in Andhra Pradesh and one each in Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Punjab Jharkhand and Uttarakhand. Of the total 6,642 fatalities, Maharashtra tops tally with 2,849 deaths followed by Gujarat with 1,190 deaths, Delhi with 708, Madhya Pradesh with 384, West Bengal with 366, Uttar Pradesh with 257,Tamil Nadu with 232, Rajasthan with 218, Telangana with 113 and Andhra Pradesh with 73 deaths. Japan, USA, Australia, England and Netherlands. I request you to follow the safety measures to prevent and spread of Corona in TN. The government will stand by people of TN and industries, Palaniswami said. Industries Minister M.C. Sampath, Rural Industries Minister Benjamin, Chief Secretary K. Shanmugham, officials were also participated in the conference. Over 500 leading industrialists are expected to take part in the event. CII Tamil Nadu president Hari K. Thiagarajan, past presidents R. Dinesh, and B. Santhanam, Preetha Reddy of Apollo Hospitals, Vijay Sankar of Sanmar Group, Srivats Ram of Wheels India and Satyakam Arya of Daimler India Commercial Vehicles Pvt. Ltd. N.Kamakoti, CEO and MD are among those who will be attending the virtual event. India surpasses Italy, now sixth worst-hit nation TN virus cases tally crosses 28,000 mark, 12 more people die Chennai, Jun 6: Tamil Nadu continued to witness a surge in COVID-19 infections with 1,438 cases and 12 deaths reported on Friday, taking the count to 28,694 and fatalities to 232. Of the fresh positive cases, Chennai alone accounted for 1,116 with the state capital’’s aggregate touching a whopping 19,826.Continuing with the trend of a new high everyday, Tamil Nadu on the sixth straight day today reported 1,000 plus cases and the newly infected include six people from Qatar, five from Dubai and one from Sri Lanka, a health department bulletin said. While 14 were returnees from Delhi, seven were from Maharashtra and those infected Friday comprises 851 men, 584 women and three transgenders.The silver lining is that 12,697 are the active cases with 861 people getting discharged today from various hospitals and totally 15,762 have got cured of the illness caused by the pathogen.Also, 800 plus recoveries in a single day is the highest in the past 10 days. On May 24, 833 people were discharged while 939 recovered on May 16. The deaths of eight men and four women, who succumbed to the virus, were reported today and the toll include a 44-year-old woman with chronic kidney disease and hypertension, the bulletin said. With the capital city registering an contd on page 4 The death toll reached 57 in Karnataka and 48 in Punjab. Jammu and Kashmir has reported 36 fatalities due to the disease, Bihar has 29, Haryana has 24 deaths, Kerala has 14, Uttarakhand has 11, Odisha has eight and Jharkhand has reported seven deaths so far. Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh have registered five COVID-19 fatalities each. Assam has recorded four deaths, while Chhattisgarh has reported two deaths so far. Meghalaya and Ladakh have reported one COVID-19 fatality each, according to the ministry data. According to the ministry’s website, more than 70 per cent of the deaths are due to comorbidities. According to the health ministry data updated in the morning, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 80,229, followed by Tamil Nadu at 28,694, Delhi at 26,334, Gujarat at 19,094, Rajasthan at 10,084,Uttar Pradesh at 9,733 and Madhya Pradesh at 8,996. The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 7,303 in West Bengal,4,835 in Karnataka,4,596 in Bihar and4,303 in Andhra Pradesh. . Tirupathi, June 6: More than two months after it shut its doors for devotees owing to the coronavirus pandemic, the famous Lord Venkateswara temple at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh is all set to open on June 8. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which administers the hill shrine, said all arrangements have been made for the reopening of the temple and issued a set of guidelines for darshan. Devotees will be permitted to enter the temple between 6.30 am and 7.30 pm. Only 6,000 devotees will be allowed per day—500 devotees can have darshan in an hour. VIP break darshan will be organized every day between 6.30 am to 7.30 am. On June 8 and 9, the darshan will be provided on an experimental basis only to the TTD employees and their family members who will have to book their slots on June 6 and 7. On June 10, the darshan facility will be extended to the local people. The temple will open for general public on June 11. As many as 3,000 darshan tickets will be issued online at a price of Rs 300 while an equal number of slotted sarva darshan tickets will be issued at the SSD counters at Tirupati. The online booking will be open from June 8. Devotees can also book their cottage at the time of booking tickets, but only two persons will be allowed to stay in one suite. Pilgrims coming from containment zones will AI opens bookings under Vande Bharat Mission phase-3 New Delhi, June 6: Air India (AI) on Friday opened bookings for around 300 flights to various countries including the USA and the UK under phase-3 of the Vande Bharat Mission that resulted in “overwhelming” demand from travellers as the national carrier got six crore hits on its website during the first two hours of opening the bookings. Many travellers vented their ire on social media, stating that Air India’s website did not function properly during the first few hours of opening when most of the flights got sold out. The national carrier opened its bookings at 5 PM and it posted the following on Twitter at 6.08 PM on Friday: “Demand for seats from India on flights planned under Mission Vande Bharat-3 is overwhelming. Sectors/ Flights are being opened in a systematic manner for booking, on the website.” In response, a passenger named Vicky Ravi tweeted, “I’ve been trying to book flights for the last one hour, ur website crashed. Please kindly help me with the booking”. Another passenger named Mandeep Kaur said the website is “very slow and the system is crashing”. Many other passengers had similar complains about the overwhelmed booking system of the national carrier. Air India will operate around 300 flights to Europe, Australia, Canada, the USA, the UK and Africa between June 10 and July 1 during phase 3 of Vande Bharat Mission. not be allowed to enter the temple even if they have a valid ticket. Senior citizens above the age of 65 and children below 10 will also not be allowed inside the temple. The Alipiri trekking route will be open from 6 am to 4 pm daily while no decision has been taken on Srivari mettu route. Devotees will not be allowed to visit the subshrines inside the temple complex. Also, no theertham or satari will be provided. The temple, which attracted around 80,000 to one lakh devotees on a regular day, shut its doors for public on March 20 in the wake of the novel coronavirus spread. However, all rituals are being conducted uninterruptedly by the priests. India responds strongly to UN human rights chief’s criticism United Nations, June 6: India and few other Asian nations on Friday responded strongly to UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, who had expressed “alarm” at “clampdown on freedom of expression” in the countries, saying the governments are focused on ensuring that precious lives are not lost due to the coronavirus pandemic and spread of “harmful misinformation” represents a clear danger to public health. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in a statement on June 3 had said that arrests for expressing discontent or allegedly spreading false information through the press and social media have been reported in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Bachelet had expressed “alarm” at the “clampdown on freedom of expression” in these Asia-Pacific nations during the COVID-19 crisis, saying any actions taken to stop the spread of false information must be proportionate. Army veterans, doctors reach out to the needy ‘Armour of Care’ timely help in lockdown M Rafi Ahmed For army veterans, doctors and young civilians of ‘Armour of Care’ (AoC), an NGO involved in community service, the vision is ‘To rise by lifting others’. And their mission is to reach out to the needy at times of distress. Inspired by Mahakavi Bharathi, AoC launched a movement ‘Let No One Go Hungry’ with the sole objective of helping below poverty line families and those in dire need with essential commodities just to keep the wolf from the door. The team has been serving in 50 different locations across Chennai, Chengalpet Coimbatore and Madurai during this nation wide lockdown extending ration items. The energetic team is determined to fight and get past this global pandemic tragedy. Humanity and compassion is the watchword for the volunteers with selfless service. Really encourag- ing that donors, philanthropists and likeminded people volunteer to help AoC with basic rations. Besides, they also procure and deliver medical equipments like face masks, personal protective kits, hand sanitizers to the frontline warriors, who are risking their lives to save lives of COVID-19 affected round-the-clock. As on June 1, AoC has reached out to 17,500 individuals belonging to 4300 families with 42 tonnes of essential items. Not just this, they are taking care of migrant workers mostly North and North Eastern states, who got stranded in metros like Chennai, Coimbatore and Bengaluru by distributing essential items. In a step further, the team is working with government and the corporation authorities in ensuring the speedy return of migrant workers to their respective natives. Noteworthy to mention that Armour of Care founded by Maj JJ Dominic, Capt Lekshmy Natarajan, Maj Madhan Kumar, Capt Shakti Singh Rathore and Dr Anand Kumar Paulraj, is a group of selfless volunteers of ex-defence personnel and doctors besides young civilians from across the country.Their service during Chennai floods to Vardah affected Kerala to Kodagu floods in Karnataka is praiseworthy. Rescue, Relief and Rehab is the motto for Armour of Care in helping people in distress.