VACCINATION...

“It all depends on regulatory approvals and data from trials. Unclear exactly when it will start,” Dr Guleria told HT.

So far, two MRNA vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna are the only ones approved for use in people below the age of 18 years.

In the Covaxin trial, children between the ages of 12 and 18 years, and 6 and 12 years have received both the jabs, whereas those between the ages of 2 and 6 years are yet to get the second jab at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

Dr Guleria told PTI: “We should then start schools in a graded manner as we have been doing for 18-45 years age and that also will give more protection to the kids and more confidence to the public that children are safe.”

Dr Guleria earlier said schools should be reopened in a staggered manner in places where the positivity rate has dropped below 5%.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said that the Capital will keep an eye on reopening of schools in other states, learn from them, and then decide whether schools should be reopened.

“The ideal situation would be to open schools after vaccination,” he said.

The positivity rate in Delhi has been below 5% for more than two months.

Public health experts have said that children, like everyone else, should get vaccinated against the disease as and when they become eligible and shots become available.

(With agency inputs)

took rescue operations in the most affected districts. According to official information, 890 villages in nine districts were affected due to the torrential downpour and landslides since Thursday. Most people were shifted from the Sangli and Kolhapur districts — 78,111 and 40,882 respectively — according to the statistics released by the state relief and rehabilitation department.

Rescue and relief work was hampered due to poor connectivity at some places. In Mahad in Raigad district, NDRF teams could not be sent by air as the helicopter carrying them could not operate due to bad weather. Residents in the flood-affected Chiplun town of Ratnagiri, which was mostly submerged on Thursday, expressed their anguish that the pace of relief work was too slow. They complained that even drinking water was not available. Water and electricity supply was badly hit in flood-affected parts of Ratnagiri and Raigad districts.

As of Thursday, 11 cases of landslides were reported in the state. Taliye, Sakhar-sutarwadi and Kevnale in Raigad, Posare in Ratnagiri, Ranjangaon in Sindhudurg and Ambeghar, Mirgaon, Humbarli, Dhokavale, Kondavli and Mojezor in Satara saw landslides where several people were found trapped and many lost their lives. A total of 135,313 people have been evacuated and shifted to safer places. However, 99 people are still missing, said a senior official from the relief and rehabilitation department.

Thackeray on Saturday visited the Taliye village, where around 50 people are still feared trapped under the debris of at least 32 houses. Thackeray assured all the help and rehabilitation of affected people. He said the state was experiencing unprecedented incidents and required smart measures as no agency can predict the intensity and quantity of rains. The hopes of finding survivors in Taliye, Mirgaon, Dhokawale and Ambeghar in Satara were fading away as the rescue operation was stalled due to heavy rain on the third day. At Taliye, loose mud prevented NDRF from resuming digging to look for the missing. Locals said the rescue operation was progressing slowly due to bad weather and difficulty.

“The state government will see no such incidents will happen in future and even if they happened, no human life will be lost in future. In order to achieve this, the state government will have to rehabilitate all villages located at hillslopes and foothills. The residents of such villages will be resettled at safer places,” Thackeray told mediapersons. “This has become necessary as no agency can forecast the intensity and quantity of rain, which is pushing the state into unprecedented conditions,” he added.

He also declared to prepare a water management scheme, which will help in the state in the management of excessive water so that flooding can be avoided. Three districts in western Maharashtra — Kolhapur, Satara and Sangli — are hit by floods. Earlier in 2019 too. This area saw devastation due to flooded rivers. “We have started working on formulating a water management scheme to overcome the flood situation in the state. It will ensure management of excessive water collected in catchment areas of dams due to heavy rains, which often results in floods following discharge from dams,” Thackeray said.

Although floodwater is receding in many areas in Konkan, it is rising in a few districts of western Maharashtra owing to discharge of water from dams. Till Saturday afternoon, 29,960 cusecs of water was released from Koyna dam. In addition to this, 10,420 cusec from Dhom dam, 5,237 cusec from Kanher, 4,645 cusec from Urmodi, 6,810 cusec from Tarali and 3,183 cusec from Dhom Balkawadi dam was released leading to overflowing of a few rivers and rise in floodwater levels in many areas of Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara districts, the officials said.

Pune-bengaluru national highway was closed owing to flooding, which led to a long queue of vehicles on the highway.

Satara district collector Shekhar Singh said that 379 villages were affected due to flooding in Satara district of western Maharashtra leading to 18 deaths and 24 missing. Of them, 167 villages were entirely affected and 212 villages were partially affected. Around 1,324 families from the district were rescued and shifted to the safer places.

Sangli district collector Abhijeet Chaudhari said that 94 villages have been affected by floods and 22,467 families will be evacuated to safer places in the district.

Deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar in Pune said the state government is coordinating with its Karnataka counterpart to ensure flood relief for the people, especially in Kolhapur district, by releasing water from Almatti dam, which is downstream.

He also said the state government has decided to distribute ration kits with rice, pulses, and kerosene in ration kits. “Normally, wheat, rice, pulses and kerosene are distributed as part of ration kits but considering the current situation wheat flour may not be available and hence the state government decided to provide rice, pulses, and kerosene in ration kits, which will help people to prepare khichdi as a meal,” Pawar said further.

Meanwhile, union minister of education and skill development Dharmendra Pradhan declared that students in Maharashtra from flood affected districts will be given another chance to appear for the engineering entrance test — JEE (Main)-2021 session 3. The National Testing Agency announced that the exam dates will be announced soon.

“In light of the heavy rain and landslides in Maharashtra, to assist the Maharashtra student community, I have advised the NTA to grant another opportunity to all candidates who may not be able to reach the test centre for JEE (Main)-2021 Session 3,” Pradhan tweeted.

“Students from Kolhapur, Palghar, Ratnagiri, Raigad, Sindhudurg, Sangli, & Satara, who are unable to reach their test centres on 25 & 27 July 2021 for JEE (Main)-2021 Session 3 need not panic. They will be given another opportunity,and the dates will be announced soon by the NTA,” he added.

The third session of JEE main is scheduled on July 20, 22, 25, and 27 . NTA had already conducted the JEE Main Session 3 exams on July 20 and July 22 successfully.

And women’s world No. 1 archer Deepika Kumari and Praveen Jadhav in mixed team archery. Yet, it was not their day, sparking fears that this could be yet another Olympics where India would have to wait anxiously for a medal.

Five long years

At the 2016 Rio Games, where Chanu had made her Olympics debut, everything had gone wrong for her. Of the six attempts given to lifters — three in snatch, three in clean & jerk — she had managed to complete just one lift in snatch.

Three months ago at the Asian Championships, she had almost relived that horror, with two no-lifts in snatch.

It’s the kind of thing that ends careers. Not for Chanu.

“We have spoken so many times about that day in the Rio Olympics in these five years,” said coach Sharma. “Every time I would tell her that she is now a different athlete. It is that incident that has brought us where we are today,” he added.

In Tokyo, if she was still haunted by those memories of Rio, she did not show it. From the moment her event started, Chanu’s body language was confident and relaxed. On her ears she wore gold earrings in the shape of the Olympic logo, gifted to her by her mother after her Rio experience.

For her first attempt — 84kg in snatch — she stepped to the stage and bowed to the bar. Then, in one clean motion, Chanu had cleared the lift. She flashed her big smile. She was in control. She was ready to script her extraordinary tale of redemption.

For her next lift, she cleared 87kg with comfort. She beamed. Only Zhihui, who also holds the world record for snatch, was lifting more. Chanu could not finish her last snatch, where she attempted 89, more than she had ever done. It didn’t matter much, because next up was clean & jerk, which Chanu has made her own. She cleared 110kg on her first attempt with such consummate ease that it looked like she was in training. By the time she was going for her second lift, set at 115kg, the entire field except Zhihui had already fallen away.

In the end, the 7kg difference between Chanu’s best snatch (87kg) and Zhihui’s best (94kg) decided the medal. “The amount of discipline and commitment she has shown is extraordinary. You see how mentally strong she was today. That comes only with great hard work,” Sharma said.

“During these rough times of the pandemic, when lives have come to an abrupt halt and mere survival has become an isolating task, victories such as yours will serve as a small reminder of the joy that hope and perseverance can bring,” read a letter addressed to Chanu by Abhinav Bindra, India’s only Olympic gold medallist.

From Rio to the silver in Tokyo was a journey that involved meticulous training, a psychologist, fixing a bad back and realigning her posture with the help of Aaron Horschig, a former weightlifter who is now a renowned physical therapist and strength coach in the US, winning the world championship in 2017, gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, a bronze at the 2020 Asian Championships and becoming the world No 1.

In a way, a medal in Tokyo was always within her strong grasp. But when it came — on a day when India were contenders in three other medal events but did not win in any of them — Chanu’s joy was infectious and may just be what the young Indian contingent needs as inspiration.

CHANU COULD NOT FINISH HER LAST SNATCH, WHERE SHE ATTEMPTED 89, MORE THAN SHE HAD EVER DONE. IT DIDN’T MATTER MUCH, BECAUSE NEXT UP WAS CLEAN & JERK