What’s your doable goal for the day?
END THE DAY BY LISTING THINGS YOU ENJOYED, OR KIND DEEDS THAT MADE YOU FEEL GOOD
If you’re finding it hard to stay productive during the lockdown, you can take heart in the fact that most of the world is feeling the same way. People who thought they’d be learning, reading, creating and bettering themselves are finding they barely have the energy to get through the day.
We’ve gone into the reasons for this — anxiety, stress, lack of stimulation, unbroken routines, or overstimulation from too much scrolling, and the impact of this on sleep cycles, are among the primary reasons.
“We’re experiencing mental fatigue because we’re constantly worrying about the pandemic and its impact,” says clinical psychologist Seema Hingorrany. “We end up feeling guilty for having ‘wasted’ the day and that causes demotivation that in turn interferes with our ability to stay productive.” Here are some ways to break this cycle.
Instead of focusing on what you’re unable to do, clearly state what you would like to accomplish. So, instead of saying “I’m unable to read”, try “I want
YOUR DAILY WORKOUT
Vajrasana: Kneel on a yoga mat. Pull knees and ankles together. The bottoms of your feet should face upwards; place the toes of your right foot on the toes of your left. Sit on your legs. Remember to take the weight off your knees. Your thighs should sit on your calves and buttocks on your heels. Sit in this position for 10 minutes, breathing in and out slowly.
A QUICK-FIX RECIPE
Banana Bread Ingredients: 4-5 overripe bananas; 2 cups all-purpose flour; 1 tsp baking soda; ½ cup butter (or cooking oil); ¾ cup brown sugar (if or normal sugar, powdered in a mixer); 2 eggs. All ingredients should be at room temperature when you begin which 0.39% are on ventilators and 2.7% on oxygen support,” he added
Testing for Covid-19 has increased fivefold since April 1, when the cumulative number of people tested was 38,914, and daily testing is expected to cross 100,000 tests a day, from 5,580 a day on April 1. Covid-19 is diagnosed using Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) assay, which is the only diagnostic test for Covid-19 approved by the WHO.
“India now has enough back-up resources to sustain and scale up testing comfortably at the present growth rate, if needed. We have reduced our dependence on imports substantially and with local manufacturing rising, there are no shortages. We have enough testing kits, RNA extraction kits, VTMS (viral transport medium) and other components to last us till July,” said CK Mishra, secretary, environment, and co-chair of the PM’S high-level committee on preparedness for a medical emergency.
RT-PCR is used for qualitative detection of genetic material called Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) from Sars-cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, and is the most accurate diagnostic test. Other tests such as rapid antibody and Elisa tests, are surveillance tools that cannot test for current infection.
“All our efforts, including our partnership with Serum Institute of India, have had a clear focus on making indigenous kits available at scale. Our scale-up of production capacity to 2 lakh kits a day is a testament to the PM’S vision of an Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India),” said Hasmukh Rawal, managing director, Mylab Discovery Solutions, which was the first lab in India to receive approval to manufacture RT-PCR kits.
The National Centre for Disease Control in Delhi now has a COBAS-6800 high-volume testing platform with a high throughput of testing around 1,200 samples in 24 hours. “The focus now is on strengthening the testing capability of states with low capacity by identifying regional labs to establish highthroughput PCR platforms for quality testing, getting private labs running, and if needed, getting an overflow of samples tested picked up for testing at other centres,” said Mishra.
To build capacity in underserved regions, Centre has sent to spend an hour reading today”. It can be the beginning of breaking a mental block. Verbalising also turns a neglected to-do into a positive goal.
We tend to measure productivity in a binary fashion — we’re either doing a task and ‘productive’, or not doing a task and ‘failing’ at the day. Gangotri Naik, 31, a sales operations manager from Bengaluru, says she began to feel more motivated to stick to her goals during the lockdown after she began to view 15 TRUENAT (Rt-micro PCR) machines to Bihar, where they can be set up in medical colleges to ramp up diagnosis. This is a small battery-operated micropcr platform that can run 32 to 48 samples in a day and produces results in one hour; it can be used in low-resource rural settings.
The 14 states/uts that have not reported any Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours are Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Puducherry, and Telangana. Daman & Diu, Sikkim, Nagaland and Lakshadweep have not reported any case to date. all future banquets. We will ensure full honour for the state guest but we will also be careful not to show off. There will be no opulence,” the official added.
A typical Rashtrapati Bhavan banquet has 11-14 dishes. On February 25, when President Donald Trump was hosted for the state banquet, the menu had 13 dishes, including Atlantic salmon, Raan Alishan and Amuse-bouche made of orange covered with peels of golden leaf and sprinkles of golden dust.
To be sure, there’s no immediate state visit to India in the works as nations around the world battle the Covid pandemic.
The aim, added another official, is to reduce costs by 20% so that the money can be spent for the poor.
“The President has given instructions to the Rashtrapati Bhavan to set an example by economising the expenditure, making optimal usage of resources, and dovetailing the saved money to combat Covid-19 and mitigate the people’s economic plight. In the President’s estimation, this will be a small but significant contribution to realise the government’s vision of making India self-reliant (Atmanirbhar) and energise the nation to take up the challenge to fight the pandemic and continue our journey for development and prosperity simultaneously,” read an official communique from the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The President’s Estate will also stop all new construction work, but the limited ongoing work will continue.
“Repair and maintenance work will be minimised to only ensure proper upkeep of assets,” added the communique.
“Money will be utilised for productivity along a spectrum.
“If I’m 30% productive, I acknowledge I’ve been 30% productive, instead of saying ‘I was unproductive today’. This motivates me to get more done.”
It helps to give yourself a treat as soon as you complete a task you’d been putting off. That’s what Yash Nagpal, 27 a customer service manager in Mumbai, has been doing during the lockdown. “I work almost non-stop for five or six hours a day — either at my job, or doing tasks in the home, poor people. But stop in work doesn’t mean cut in money for contract workers. The idea is to reduce consumption by those who are better off,” said the second official.
So far, President Ram Nath Kovind has given ~5 lakh from his salary to the PM Cares Fund. Officials in Rashtrapati Bhavan have contributed another ~18 lakh to the fund. Kovind has also decided to “substantially reduce” the use of papers and other office consumables, and use more digital space to avoid wastage of paper. Efforts will be made to save energy and fuel by rationalising their usage.
The President’s domestic tours and programmes will also be substantially reduced. Instead, he will use technology to reach out to people. nesses and street vendors. “Farmers and workers are the backbone of this nation. They serve all of us with their sweat and toil,” she said.
The finance minister said free food grains will be supplied to migrant families in May and June this year and the scheme will cover all those who are not covered under the National Food Security Act or who do not have a ration card in the state where they are stranded. “8 lakh MT of food grain and 50,000 MT of chana shall be allocated,” she said.
Union food minister Ram Vilas Paswan told HT the Centre won’t insist on any upfront documentation for free grains to migrants. States may send details of utilisation later. Grains will be distributed from Friday, he said, adding that trains were ready for the purpose.
Manobi Sinha, a labour economist with the Allahabad University, said: “The government has finally heeded the call of so many concerned people by assuring free food to migrants. I think as a one-time exception, this should be done without demand of any documentation, including Aadhaar.”
In order to have a robust food security system, the government will use technology-enabled ration card system -- One Nation One Ration Card -- so that all beneficiaries can access ration under the public distribution system from anywhere in the country by March 2021. The pilot scheme for this will cover 670 million people by August.
The government has also decided to launch an affordable rental housing scheme for or attending online classes as part of my upskilling agenda,” he says. “After work, I binge-watching or chat with friends.”
Start small and set a timeframe. Weekly goals can feel more achievable. “It’s also important to be okay with inconsistency,” says Hingorrany. “So if you default on your diet or exercise plan for one day, just bounce back the next day.”
“To give yourself a mood boost in these strange times, it can help to spend each morning listing at least five things you’re grateful for,” says clinical psychologist and therapist Husna Vanjara. “End the day by thinking about the best thing you did, felt or experienced, whether it was trying out a new recipe, helping a neighbour . This will give you something to feel positive about, and look forward to, every day.”
READ
The Emigrants by WG Sebald: This is the story of four Jewish people that the award-winning German author knew – his landlady’s husband, his teacher, his great uncle, and a painter – all eventually emigrants to the UK and US.
WATCH
Material: A tender, funny, eye-opening film on Netflix about a young Indian-origin Muslim man in South Africa trying to navigate the worlds of women, family and ambition while juggling dreams of a stand-up career and a dad determined that he stay true to his faith and take over the family’s textile store. migrant workers and urban poor, Sitharaman said. “This will be done through converting government funded houses in the cities into Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHC) under PPP [public-private-partnership] mode through concessionaire, manufacturing units, industries, institutions, associations,” she said. The concessionaires can use their private land for the purpose. The Centre and states can also use public land for ARHC. The administrative ministry will soon announce details of the scheme, she added.
A Credit Suisse equity research report of May 13 estimated that part one of the economic package worth ~13 lakh crore has already been done by Wednesday and ~7 lakh crore was yet to come.
A finance ministry spokesperson, however, declined comment on the numbers.
To provide relief to micro enterprises that can avail loans up to ~50,000 under the MUDRA Shishu scheme, the Centre has decided to provide a 2% interest subvention for 12 months to the borrower, the finance minister said. Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency (MUDRA) supports development of micro enterprises and provides refinance support to lending institutions.
The government also announced the plan to launch a special scheme next month to provide easy access to credit to street vendors in rural and urban areas. Under this scheme, bank credit facility for initial working capital up to ~10,000 will be extended to each. “Use of digital payments and timely repayments will be incentivised through monetary rewards,” minister of state for finance Anurag Singh Thakur, who also addressed the press conference, said. The scheme is expected to benefit 5 million street vendors and involve a credit flow of ~5,000 crore, he added.
Sitharaman said the government has approved a proposal of states to provide job opportunities in tribal areas under the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA). “Government of India will grant immediate approval to these plans amounting to ~6,000 crore,” she said. The money will be used for afforestation and plantation works. She also announced housing for people in the middle income group -- annual Income between ~6 lakh and ~18 lakh -through extension of creditlinked
Tikuli has always been trying to find a home. Even during this lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. In her 50s, her means are artistic that involves painting and writing, and by keenly observing the flow of seasons. (Among other things, she paints birds she watches from her window.) Spending the lockdown while stranded in her son’s second-floor barsati in Hauz Khas, very close to the Chor Minar monument, Tikuli seems excited as she talks of being able to see “mulberry tree and the gulmohar through the living-room window, jamun tree through the kitchen window and mango trees, loaded with mangoes, from the terrace.”
She is chatting on Whatsapp video, the photos are taken through the phone screen that connects her to this reporter.
The search for home is not only a metaphor, however.
“I want to have a place of my own.” Until recently, she was at her brother’s place in Ghaziabad. Following the end of lockdown and after her full recovery with health complications, she plans to earnestly start looking for a house in Delhi.
But she has already found at least one home—in the poem she purposely wrote for these pages on request. “Although I composed it in 30 minutes, I’d been thinking about the poem for many days.. I had to be the city you never see subsidy scheme under the Prime Minister Aawas Yojana (Urban). It will benefit 0.25 million middle income families during 2020-21 and will lead to investment of over ~70,000 crore in the housing sector, the finance minister added. “This will create significant number of jobs by giving boost to housing sector and will stimulate demand for steel, cement, transport and other construction materials,” she added.
Sitharaman said farmers need emergency working capital and that NABARD will extend additional re-finance support of ~30,000 crore to them. It can be used for meeting crop loan requirement of Rural Cooperative Banks (RCBS) and Regional Rural banks (RRBS). “This refinance will be front-loaded and available on tap. This is over and above ~90,000 crore that will be provided by NABARD to this sector in the normal course,” she said, adding that the move will benefit around 30 million farmers who are mostly small and marginal. The government will also launch a special drive to provide concessional credit to PM-KISAN beneficiaries through Kisan Credit Cards, the finance minister said. “This will inject additional liquidity of ~2 lakh crore in the farm sector and cover 25 million farmers”
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president JP Nadda tweeted that the FM’S announcements offering affordable rental housing to urban poor, support to returning migrant workers, and central assistance of ~11,000 crore to states for free accommodation and food in urban shelters show PM Modi’s sensitivity towards the poor and marginal people.
“I welcome announcements by FM @nsitharaman Ji for the benefit of migrant workers. Free food for two months to 8 Crore migrants, nationwide implementation of One Nation One Ration Card Scheme are major initiatives to ensure food security for migrant workers,” he tweeted.
The Congress said the government’s economic package has so far fallen way short of what the Prime Minister had promised.
Anand Sharma, a senior spokesperson of the party, said the country believed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was serious when he made the “dramatic” announcement of giving 10% of the GDP as a package to revive the economy and support workers and migrant labourers, and that expectations had soared. “The finance minister’s announcement dashed all hopes,” he said.
ACROSS
DOWN