YK MYK STRONG CASE FOR A MORE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC DAY THAILAND OPEN: SAINA CRASHES OUT, INJURED KIDAMBI PULLS OUT OPINION SPORTS Morning India Rs. 3 KOLKATA FRIDAY, 15 JAN, 2021 PG-12, YEAR—7, ISSUE—239 (RNI NO: WBENG / 2014 / 56803) WEATHER TODAY MAX 25 C MIN 13 C Sky will be clear. AT A GLANCE WHOLESALE INFLATION EASES TO 1.2% IN DECEMBER NEW DELHI: Wholesale inflation for December declined to 1.22 per cent due to lower food inflation, official data showed on Thursday. In November, the inflation based on Wholesale Price Index (WPI) was 1.55 per cent. The data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed that food inflation fell to 0.92 per cent in December, due to sharp fall in onion prices. The Consumer Price Index released on Tuesday, which shows retail inflation, also declined to 4.59 per cent for December 2020 compared with 6.93 per cent in November. INDIA'S TALLY OF THE NEW UK COVID-19 STRAIN REACHES 109 NEW DELHI: The total number of persons infected with the mutant strain of COVID-19 from the UK reached 109 on Thursday, informed the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare. After the new strain of COVID19 was detected in the UK, the government imposed a ban on flights coming to India from the country from December 22 last year. This ban has been lifted but passengers arriving will have to undergo an test both in the UK before boarding their flight and after arriving in India. Parliament session from Jan 29, FM to present Budget on Feb 1 NEW DELHI: The Budget session of Parliament will commence from January 29, with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman set to present the Union Budget on February 1. The session will be held in two parts -- from January 29 to February 15 and March 8 to April 8. The 5th session of the 17th Lok Sabha will have 35 sittings -- 11 in the first part and 24 in the second part. President Ram Nath Kovind will address both Houses of Parliament -- the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha -- at 11 am on January 29. Sitharaman will present the Union Budget at 11 am on February 1. Parliament will adjourn on February 15 to enable various Standing Committees to consider the Demands for Grants of Ministries/Departments and prepare their reports, and reconvene on March 8. The third phase of Pradhan Ormanjhi beheading case key accused in police net RAJ KUMAR RANCHI: Sheikh Belal, who had allegedly beheaded a woman, Sufia Parveen, and dumped her nude body near Sai Nath University under Ormanjhi police station area, was arrested on Thursday from Kute village under the same police station. The breakthrough came after Senior Superintendent of Police S.K.Jha got a tip-off and swung into action. After arresting, Belal was taken to the spot to explain how he committed the crime. Following which police took him to an undisclosed location for further interrogation in the matter. S.P.(rural) Naushad Ahmed confirmed the arrest but expressed his inability to divulge further details in the connection. "Interrogation is still on. The entire thing will be shared with the media tomorrow by organizing a press conference," Ahmed said. However, information reaching through different sources so far, suggests that SIT officials with the accused (c) at the crime scene to recreate the incident on Thursday. the murder was the outcome of the soured relationship of Parveen (Bilal's first wife) with Sufia. Sufia, a resident of Chanho, had married Belal, who was already married. After marriage, Sufia started mounting pressure on Belal to divorce his first wife. This caused a rift. Then Sufia knocked on the door of the police in June last year. Police arrested Belal and sent him to jail. After Belal was sent to jail, Sufia married another married man. After Belal came out after 10 months of imprisonment, he committed the cruel murder. He, with the help of some of his friends, beheaded Sufia before attacking her face 11 times with a sharp-edged weapon. He left the headless body of Sufia at Ormanjhi and buried her head in a crop field near his house in Pithoria, about 3km from the body, on January 2. On January 3, the headless body of Sufia was recovered. It became difficult for police to get any clue about this murder. Police kept on declaring rewards. On January 4 it declared an award of Rs 25000 for the clue and kept on increasing it up to Rs 5 lakh. But it did not yield a proper result and police remained under severe criticism for their poor inves- BS MANN RECUSES FROM SC-APPOINTED PANEL ON FARM LAWS tigation capacity. SSP Jha then asked police officials to identify those families from where the girl is missing but no FIR had been registered. The idea worked and the parents of Sufia were searched. They were taken near the body. They identified the body of their daughter with a burn mark on her leg. As the body was identified, police became active and started looking for the suspected killer, Belal, whose photograph was also released. As the photograph was released, it became difficult for Belal to get shelter. Meanwhile, police on January 12 also recovered the head of the woman and then on January 13 the shovel used in digging the hole. Finally, Belal was arrested from Kute, about 17km from the place of occurrence. As far as the background of Belal is concerned as many as 11 cases under different sections, including murder and keeping illegal arms against him have been registered against him at different police stations. NEW DELHI: Farmer leader Bhupinder Singh Mann, one of the four members on the committee appointed by the Supreme Court to talk with farmers on the three new central farm laws, has stepped down, the BKU said on Thursday. The Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) tweeted a letter by Mann and said: "Bhupinder Singh Mann, a former MP and BKU national President and All India Kisan Coordination Committee Chairman, has recused himself from the 4-member committee constituted by the Supreme Court." Mann could not be reached for comments on the issue. Mann said in the letter that he was thankful to the apex court for nominating him as one of the committee members to start a dialogue with the protesting farmers. COVID-19 vaccines are being dispatched for Darjeeling and other areas from North Bengal Medical College, in Siliguri on Thursday. INDIA TOTAL CASES: 1,05,12,631 TOTAL DEATH: 151,765 WORLD TOTAL CASES: 92,895,303 A devotee takes a holy bath during the Ganga Sagar Mela, some 140 kms south of Kolkata onThursday. NEW DELHI: Hiring is set to bounce back as most organisations have lifted the freeze in hiring, according to a Naukri.com survey released on Thursday. The survey revealed that only 11 per cent recruiters said that hiring is on hold in their respective organisations, while half of them had confirmed the same in the first wave of the survey (done in April, 2020). Furthermore, 35 per cent of recruiters agreed that hiring is happening as usual against 13 per cent who confirmed so in the first wave of the survey. On asked when they anticipate hiring to go back to pre-Covid levels in the second wave of the survey, 21 per cent recruiters said it will resume in 3 months, 26 per cent predicted 3-6 months, and 34 per cent said it would take their organisations 6 months to 1 year to start hiring like in preCovid days. The survey also revealed that in the first wave of the survey, 44 per cent of recruiters had confirmed deferred joining. However in NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to launch the pan India rollout of COVID-19 vaccination drive on January 16 at 10:30 am via video conferencing, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) informed on Thursday. This will be the world's largest vaccination program covering the entire length and breadth of the country, PMO said. "A total of 3006 session sites across all States and UTs will be virtually connected during the launch. Around 100 beneficiaries will be vaccinated at each session site on an inaugural day," the PMO added. It said this vaccination programme is based on the principles of priority groups to be vaccinated and Health Care workers, both in government and private sectors including ICDS workers, will receive the vaccine during this phase. "The vaccination programme will use Co-WIN, an online digital platform devel- In a study published in Public Health in Practice, researchers led by Professor Shinichiro Sasahara at the University of Tsukuba analyzed workers' "sense of coherence" (SOC) scores, demographic attributes, and their forest/greenspace walking habits. SOC comprises the triad of meaningfulness (finding a sense of meaning in life), comprehensibility (recognizing and understanding stress), and manageability (feeling equipped to deal with stress). Studies have found factors such as higher education and being married can strengthen SOC, while smoking and not exercising can weaken it. People with strong SOC also have greater resilience to stress. The study used survey data on more than 6,000 Japanese workers between 20 and 60 years old. It found stronger SOC among people who regularly took walks in forests or greenspaces. "SOC indicates mental capacities for realizing and dealing with stress. With workplace stress as a focal issue, there's a clear benefit in identifying everyday activities that raise SOC. It seems we may have found one." Professor Sasahara said. People find comfort in nature, oped by Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which will facilitate real-time information of vaccine stocks, storage temperature and individualized tracking of beneficiaries for COVID-19 vaccine. This digital platform will assist programme managers across all levels while conducting vaccination sessions," PMO stated. A dedicated 24x7 call centre - 1075 - has also been established for addressing the queries related to the pandemic, vaccine rollout and the Co-WIN software. "Adequate doses of both COVISHIELD and COVAXIN have already been delivered across the country to all States/UTs with the active support of the Ministry of Civil Aviation. These have been further delivered by the State/UT governments to the districts. All preparations are in place to initiate the programme on the principles of Jan Bhagidari," PMO further said. ONCE A SOLDIER, ALWAYS A SOLDIER: RAJNATH AT VETERANS' DAY FUNCTION PAGE 7 the second phase, that has declined to only 12 per cent. While 32 per cent recruiters confirmed that increments have already been rolled out in the second wave of the survey, another 34 per cent will be extending salary hikes in the coming months. A total of 38 per cent recruiters have opted to offer increments in the range of 5 per cent to 10 per cent, whereas one-fifth have voted for the 15 per cent to 20 per cent increment bracket. The survey was rolled-out to 1,300 recruiters. The first wave of the recruiters' survey was done in April 2020 and the second wave was conducted in October 2020. GO FOR WALK TO REDUCE WORK-RELATED STRESS TSUKUBA: Researchers from the University of Tsukuba examined the relationship between 'sense of coherence' (a quality indicative of stress-coping ability) and frequency of walking in forests or greenspaces to find easy coping devices for workplace stress. Work causes so much stress that it's become a global public health issue. Stress's impact on mental and physical health can also hurt productivity and result in economic loss. A new study finds that working people who regularly take walks in forests or greenspaces may have higher stresscoping abilities. The findings suggest the benefits of walking in urban greenspaces or in forests to help with stress management. Forest/greenspace walking at least once a week was found to correlate with those with a stronger sense of coherence. ANI PM to launch rollout of COVID-19 vaccination drive Most organisations lifted freeze on hiring: Naukri.com CORONA METER TOTAL DEATH: 1,989,457 Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY 3.0) will be launched on Friday in 600 districts across India. Spearheaded by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), this phase will focus on newage and Covid-related skills. Skill India Mission PMKVY 3.0 envisages training of eight lakh candidates over a scheme period of 2020-2021 with an outlay of Rs 948.90 crore, said the Ministry. and in countries like a significant correlation Japan urban greenwith both forest and spaces are increasgreenspace walking WORK ing in popularity at least once a CAUSES SO where nature week. This key MUCH STRESS THAT isn't readily finding implies IT'S BECOME A GLOBAL accessible. the greater PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE. This means benefits of STRESS'S IMPACT ON many workers urban greening MENTAL AND PHYSICAL in cities can -- not just enviHEALTH CAN ALSO HURT easily take a ronmental, but PRODUCTIVITY AND walk among the also socioecoRESULT IN ECONOMtrees. nomic. IC LOSS. The researchers "Our study sugdivided the survey gests that taking a respondents into four walk at least once a groups based on their freweek in a forest or green space quency of forest/greenspace walk- can help people have stronger ing. Then, they compared their SOC. Forest/greenspace walking is walking activity against attributes a simple activity that needs no such as age, income, and marital special equipment or training. It status, and with the respondents' could be a very good habit for SOC scores, which were grouped improving mental health and as weak, middle, and strong. managing stress," explained Those with strong SOC showed Professor Sasahara. GOOGLE PURGES HUNDREDS OF FAKE PERSONAL LOAN APPS IN INDIA NEW DELHI: Alarmed at the growing harmful financial services products on its Play Store in India, Google on Thursday said it has reviewed hundreds of personal loan apps in India and pulled down several of them found to be violating its app policies. The company said it has asked the developers of the remaining identified apps to demonstrate that they comply with applicable local laws and regulations in India. "We have reviewed hundreds of personal loan apps in India, based on flags submitted by users and government agencies," said Suzanne Frey, Vice President, Product, Android Security and Privacy. "Apps that fail to do so will be removed without further notice. In addition, we will continue to assist the law enforcement agencies in their investigation of this issue," Frey said in a statement. There has been a surge in personal loan apps in India in the recent months.