Nitish Kumar took oath as the Bihar chief minister for a fourth straight term on Monday after the NDA won 125 of the 243 seats in the recently concluded Assembly elections.  

The NDA on Sunday chose Kumar for another term as the Chief Minister and his name was announced by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh who had been sent from Delhi as the “observer” for the BJP, according to PTI.

“Nitish Kumar was unanimously elected as the NDA legislature party leader. Our MLAs Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi were respectively elected as the leader and deputy leader of the BJP legislature party”, Singh told reporters. 

The RJD and Congress have decided to boycott the swearing-in ceremony, saying the “mandate for change was against the NDA”, according to The Hindu.

A 14-member council of ministers, headed by Nitish Kumar, was also sworn in by Governor Phagu Chauhan.

Those who were administered oath of office included two Deputy Chief Minister designates Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi, both from the BJP.

Since the post of a Deputy CM is not a constitutional one, the two took oath as ministers and their posts would be notified by the cabinet in due course, according to PTI.

Five ministers were from the JD(U), which is headed by Nitish Kumar, while one each was from smaller allies Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP).

JD(U) ministers included old hands like Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Ashok Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Chaudhary besides new faces Mewa Lal Chaudhary and Sheela Kumari Mandal.

Other than the two Deputy CM designates, those from the BJP included Mangal Pandey who held the health portfolio in the previous government besides Amarendra Pratap Singh, Ramprit Paswan, Jibesh Kumar and Ram Surat Rai.

HAM MLC Santosh Kumar Suman, whose father Jitan Ram Manjhi is a former Chief Minister and the national president of the party, also took oath besides Mukesh Sahni, the founder of VIP who formerly worked as a set designer in the film industry.

(With PTI inputs)

The Crown newcomer Emma Corrin has received widespread praise for her portrayal of Princess Diana, but it turns out filming the show wasn’t all plain-sailing.

During a new interview with Glamour, Emma revealed that she had to be hospitalised after filming one of series four’s most difficult scenes on location in Spain.

“I’m asthmatic and I had been ill for a while with a bad cough,” she told the magazine.

“I had to film a scene in a freezing-cold swimming pool, with the kids playing William and Harry.

“It was honestly the hardest scene to film because I was genuinely keeping myself alive treading water, and also keeping five-year-old ‘Harry’ alive, as we found out he couldn’t swim!”

Emma recalled that she paid a visit to a hospital for some antibiotics, but ended up not being allowed to leave.

She said: “The doctors gave me an oxygen test and said, ‘We cannot let you go because your oxygen levels are so low,’ so I was hospitalised.

“I remember the nurses, figuring out what I was filming and saying, ‘We know you’re playing Princess Diana, would you like us to put a cardboard bag over your head so no one recognises who you are?’ in broken English!”

Speaking to HuffPost UK in the lead-up to the new series, Emma revealed that season four of The Crown does not shy away from Princess Diana’s personal issues, admitting she found filming scenes of the late royal’s bulimia especially tough.

“I kind of underestimated how hard it would be,” Emma said. “I was like, ‘it’ll just be like crying on screen, you just get into the zone’... but it was not fun. But I felt like it was important, and so I kind of just did it.”

Read Emma’s full interview on Glamour’s website.

US biotechnology firm Moderna has announced its coronavirus vaccine is more than  94% effective at preventing the disease.

Interim data from the US firm Moderna suggests its vaccine is highly effective in preventing people getting ill and also works across all age groups, including the elderly.

As Nitish Kumar begins his fourth term as Bihar chief minister, he is not only dealing with the loss of his own political stature in the state but also that of his party’s within the NDA: with 43 seats to BJP’s 74, the JD(U) has been reduced to a junior partner from Big Brother.

To add to his troubles, Nitish will have to run the government without his confidante, BJP’s Sushil Kumar Modi, who held the post of deputy chief minister for much of the 15 years that Nitish has been CM.

Instead, on Monday, two BJP legislators, Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi, were sworn in as deputy chief ministers, on the lines of the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh. Both are four-time MLAs, from Katihar and Betia, respectively, and Devi is from the Extremely Backward Class (EBC). HuffPost India learnt from top political sources that Nitish attempted to get Sushil Modi back as deputy CM, but was spurned by the leadership.

As Nitish’s tug-of-war with the BJP continues, people familiar with the matter also told HuffPost India that RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav also called smaller NDA allies such as Jitan Ram Manjhi and Mukesh Sahani to try and get them to support the Mahagathbandhan. Both have turned down the offer for now, and both Sahani and Santosh Kumar Suman from Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) have also taken oath.

The NDA, which includes BJP, JD(U), HAM and Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) have won 125 seats, three more than what is required for a simple majority. Even one ally backing out could cause the government to collapse. The RJD-led Mahagathbandhan, which also includes Congress and the Left parties, won 110 seats. The RJD is the single-largest party with 75 seats.

Exit Sushil Kumar Modi

Until Monday, it was still not clear whether Sushil Kumar Modi would get another chance as deputy CM or not. But Sushil Modi himself gave a big hint on Sunday evening when he removed ‘deputy chief minister’ from his Twitter bio. He also tweeted that in the 40 years of his political career, the BJP and the RSS gave him more than anyone ever got. He added that nobody can snatch the position of a party worker from him and that he would continue to discharge whatever responsibility is given to him.

“The BJP has placed faith in Nitish but the central leadership seems to be reluctant about Sushil Modi. He may be picked for some other role,” a senior BJP leader from Bihar told HuffPost India.

Right after the Bihar assembly election results became clear, the BJP had informed Nitish that he should prepare for his fourth term as CM. Well-informed sources told HuffPost India that Nitish sent a message to the central BJP leadership, recommending the continuation of Sushil Modi as deputy chief minister in his government.

However, he was left disappointed as top BJP leaders said that only Prime Minister Narendra Modi could take a decision on the future role of Sushil Modi. The BJP had virtually signaled to Nitish that his dictating terms to the BJP was no history and his choice in the BJP may not necessarily be the high command’s choice as well.

This doesn’t come as a surprise—Sushil Modi is known to be very close to Nitish Kumar, right from the days of the JP movement, and is often referred to as Nitish’s man in the BJP.

While he is articulate and one of the tallest BJP leaders in Bihar, he is also resented within the party for letting Nitish run the show in Bihar. 

“Sushil Modi may be good for Nitishji but he may be good for the BJP. The BJP too has an expansion plan in Bihar and Sushil Modi was apparently proving as hindrance to this expansion plan. Politically speaking, this changed template has a lot of meaning for Nitishji also,” said the BJP leader quoted above.

The BJP doesn’t hold all the cards though. Nitish is deeply annoyed that the BJP damaged his party by propping up the Chirag Paswan-led LJP. Paswan’s party won only one seat but it damaged the electoral prospects of the JD (U) in as many as 41 assembly seats. Well-placed sources told HuffPost India that Nitish made his displeasure known to Bihar BJP in-charge Bhupendra Yadav and Minister of state for Home Nityanand Rai, when they visited him after the results.

While the BJP holds the upper hand, it has no chance of forming a government in the absence of Nitish, at least as of now.

RJD’s feelers

Amidst this political drama, the RJD has also been sending out feelers to Manjhi’s HAM, Sahani’s VIP and Asaduddin Owaisi’s party All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (which won 5 seats and is not part of any alliance).
RJD president and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav is learnt to have called the party leaders, asking them to support the Mahagathbandhan. Lalu, who is currently lodged at Kelly’s Bungalow in Ranchi, also called the independent MLA from Chakai, Sumit Singh, to support the Mahagathbandhan.
However, all four have turned down the proposal despite Sahani and Manjhi being offered plum posts. After this, Nitish personally spoke to both Sahani and Manjhi, who assured him of their support, and the government formation exercise was sped through.

Editor’s note: IRCTC’s response on Twitter has been added to the story. 

Kozhikode, KERALA — On the afternoon of October 23, S. Yuvarajaa was at his home in Tirupur, writing software, when the Railway Police Force came knocking on his door. 

“Did you develop this app?” the policemen asked, pointing to a phone screen displaying Super Tatkal, a phone app developed by Yuvarajaa that books tatkal rail tickets much faster than Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the Indian Railways’ famously cumbersome website.

When he said ‘yes’, Yuvarajaa, a 32-year-old alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur, was arrested under the Indian Railways Act 1989 for the “unauthorized business of procuring and supplying railway tickets”.

Lockdown Poverty And Hostel Policy Push LSR Scholarship Student To Suicide

Soon after his arrest, the railway authorities deactivated Super Tatkal and Super Tatkal Pro, which were available on Google Playstore until then. Yuvarajaa spent about a week in jail.

Now out on bail and faced with mounting legal fees, Yuvarajaa says he just wants the railways to understand that far from “swindling” users — as the railways have alleged — he just wanted to help rail passengers book their tickets with ease.

“I want them to talk to me and find out how the apps can help IRCTC’s ticket-booking operations. I might have been naïve and unaware of consequences when I developed the apps but I had the best of intentions,” Yuvarajaa told HuffPost India. “I have a solution that can effectively address the current issues on the IRCTC website. I would like to help them make their website better so that end users, the passengers, can book tickets easily.”

For now, Yuvarajaa and Super Tatkal have become unfortunate case studies of what happens when the software industry’s ethos of digital disruption crashes into India’s famously prickly bureaucracy as epitomised by the 167-year-old Indian Railways. 

A young coder from a small town who gave up a comfortable job in an aeronautics firm to set up his own business, Yuvarajaa is a poster child for the Indian government’s mission to support digital entrepreneurs of the sort that Prime Minister Narendra Modi exhorts to “take risks” and embark on adventures.

Yet, as Yuvarajaa’s arrest shows, the biggest impediment to innovation are his government’s many departments. Yuvarajaa saw himself as an entrepreneur’ but the Railways press release announcing his arrest described him as a “tout”.

 “Regulatory frameworks, be that of IRCTC or that of any other government institution, should not be bypassed,” said S. Arunachalam, Academic Director of Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Indian School of Business. “But I think that he should have been warned first to reach an amicable solution.” 

IRCTC responded to HuffPost India on Twitter, saying that the use of “illegal software” is prohibited under the Railways Act.

From Tirupur to Super Tatkal

The story of Super Tatkal has its roots in Yuvarajaa’s journey from a small town in Tamil Nadu to Bengaluru, India’s self-described Silicon Valley.

Yuvarajaa comes from a family of farmers— his father worked as one until he died in 2008 and his mother, Eswari, still cultivates the family’s 30 acres of land.

Yuvarajaa recalls that he first started programming in BASIC as an 11-year-old. Soon, he developed a love for coding and started considering engineering as a career option when he was introduced to Java in Class XI.  

In 2007, Yuvarajaa signed up for an aeronautical engineering degree at the Madras Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu’s premier tech school. Since he had topped Class XII in his district, he had a three-year scholarship of Rs 3,000 per month from the Indian government’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

At MIT-Chennai, Yuvarajaa met others like him who loved coding.  

“We were a group of people who liked programming. When some of us went on to take up jobs, Yuvarajaa went for higher studies as he was passionate about engineering,” said Akilan, a friend and fellow aeronautical engineer who is currently working in New Jersey. 

After graduating in 2010 from MIT Chennai, Yuvarajaa joined IIT-Kharagpur for an M. Tech in aeronautical engineering. Again, he had a scholarship, this time for topping the GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering). 

Once he finished his IIT course, he joined a firm in Bengaluru. 

“In aeronautical engineering there are very few private firms which offer jobs. But he got one of the good jobs available in India,” Akilan said. 

While working in Bengaluru, Yuvarajaa frequently booked tickets to travel home to Tirupur. 

“It was then that I realised that the IRCTC app is terribly slow. Besides, I always wanted to develop apps and this felt like the right time,” Yuvarajaa told HuffPost India. “So Super Tatkal took shape.”

Super Tatkal, launched in 2016, allowed users to prefill their journey details and paste these onto the IRCTC website. This sped up the booking process by about five times the usual time it takes to book tickets on IRCTC website, said Yuvarajaa. 

The app was buggy at first, he said, but a steady group of users kept sharing their experience. 

“I went about correcting the bugs and realised that the app was gaining traction,” he said. 

Super Tatkal was free for the first year. Later, as the maintenance cost of servers increased to Rs 10,000 per month, Yuvarajaa asked for user contributions — but this didn’t help much. He then decided to finance the app through in-app purchases where users were asked to buy a stack of 10 virtual coins for Rs 20. After the first three free bookings, the app charged five coins per transaction — ie, a nominal fee of Rs 10 per booking.

The Railway Police claims Yuvarajaa earned Rs 20 lakh through Super Tatkal between 2016 and 2020. This may sound like a big number, but it works out to about Rs 40,000 per month.

Yuvarajaa said all his users were aware of the payment model and that he had not cheated anyone into paying.  

‘Didn’t take permission’

While Super Tatkal was taking off, Yuvarajaa soon became comfortable in the startup bubble. He quit his job in 2017 and started a truck aggregator app, Speedbird trucks, along with two of his friends. 

“It was like an Ola or Uber for trucks. It took off well in the beginning,” Yuvarajaa said. But before the app could get traction, trouble started. It was difficult to convince people to use the trucks available on the app because existing contracts from known services seemed simpler for users. 

“We took on lease two trucks to run the app but that ended in losses,” said Yuvarajaa. The company was built on the life savings of the three young men and it lacked a business model. 

“To arrive at the business model one has to experiment with various models and this costs money,” said Yuvarajaa. The company also lacked a mentor, an industry insider, who could have offered steady advice and feedback. 

“It is difficult to network and find help when you are a beginner,” he said. 

It also didn’t have an investor. “We were at the experimental stage and could not win the confidence of an investor,” he said. In the experimental stage, startups built on little resources are mostly on their own and can only dream of reaching the patent filing stage which gets support from the Union government. 

Meanwhile, Super Tatkal was doing relatively well. “The users kept growing and I launched a second app—Super Tatkal Pro—which allowed booking on IRCTC’s rail connect app in 2019,” he said. 

To keep his startup alive and to support his family, Yuvarajaa also worked as a freelance programmer. The income was small but steady. However, unbeknownst to Yuvarajaa, his app was on the Railway police’s radar. 

“RPF Cyber Cell at Southern Railway Headquarters Chennai had played a key role in analysis of data and identification of the fake app developer’s location and also collected digital evidences i.e server source code, application source code, end-users list and bank statements of the offender,” the Railway police said in their press release.

Yuvarajaa’s mistake, an officer at the security command centre of RPF told HuffPost India, was that “he did not obtain the needed permission from IRCTC and was working like a ticketing agent”. 

Under the Railways Act, all those who help passengers with ticketing are expected to register with the IRCTC as an agent. Does this apply for app creators? The officer reserved his comment. 

Yuvarajaa, however, said that he was “trying to create something of value for people” and that he “was not aware that the app would be considered illegal”. IRCTC could have sent him a warning or a cease-and-desist order before swooping in, he rued.     

Arunachalam, of the Indian School of Business, said Yuvarajaa’s case points to the need for more mentorship in India’s start-up space.  

“He does not seem to have understood the process well,” Arunachalam said.

Back in Tirupur, Yuvarajaa said that he hopes to work with the Railways once his legal troubles end.

Will he revive his apps if he gets the required permission from IRCTC? 

“I would like to,” he said.

This story was corrected to say that Yuvarajaa was arrested on October 23 and spent about a week in jail, not a month-and-a-half.

Another experimental COVID-19vaccine is provinghighly effective in trials, according to its manufacturer, offering the best hope yet that a large portion of the U.S. population will be getting immunized sometime in the coming year.

The company, Moderna, said on Monday that its vaccine is 94.5% effective, based on a study of people who got either the actual vaccine or a placebo as part of a large-scale test that has been underway since the summer.

Of the 95 people in the experiment who developed COVID-19 symptoms, 90 were in the placebo group, with several getting the most severe form of the disease. Of the five in the vaccine group who developed COVID-19 symptoms, none got its severe form.

“The results in this trial are truly striking,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a telephone press conference convened by the National Institutes of Health. “I’d said I would be satisfied with a 70, 75% efficacy, that something like 95% was really aspirational ... Well, our aspirations have been met, and that is really very good news.”

Last week, Pfizer announced that its own vaccine was more than 90% effective, based on similar findings. 

Both manufacturers have indicated they intend to seek emergency approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and that if they get approval, they stand ready to start mass production. Moderna says it could produce enough to vaccinate 10 million people in the U.S. by the end of 2020, and Pfizer has said it could produce even more.

Fauci and other experts were quick to issue the same cautionary notes they did last week ― that this is still based on interim data, and that approval will, and should, depend on more information about safety. The vaccine’s long-term effectiveness is also an open question. It’s not clear how long immunity would last, assuming the preliminary data holds up.

Still, the Moderna news is especially encouraging, because its vaccine works in the same way that Pfizer’s does. Both use “messenger RNA,” which the human body uses as code to manufacture proteins. 

The vaccines have an artificially engineered version of mRNA that contains the instructions to create part of the COVID-19 virus ― in particular, the now widely recognizable spiky protein on the virus surface. When people get the vaccine, their cells start to produce the protein and the immune system reacts to it, developing a response that can then prevent the disease when people come into contact with the real virus.

Or, at least, that’s always been the hope. Although mRNA vaccines have been in development for many years, nobody has produced and deployed one successfully, as both Pfizer and Moderna now seem to be on the verge of doing.

The Moderna news increases confidence in COVID-19 vaccines for another reason. Although other manufacturers have tried approaches other than mRNA, they are similarly focusing on the spiky protein. If both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have indeed succeeded in generating an immune response, that’s more reason to think those other vaccines will too.

“One of the things that we find is potentially good news for the future... is the consistency across different platforms,” Fauci said. “All of them use the spike protein as the target ... Although you never want to get ahead of yourself and make predictions before the results of the trials are in, conceptually this looks good.”

Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious disease specialist and associate professor at Boston University, told HuffPost that the announcement is “good news for sure” and bodes well for other vaccines, although she cautioned that the data still needs more review. Also, she said, “there are still questions regarding whether these vaccines protect from disease alone or also asymptomatic infection ― which could allow the vaccinated to continue transmitting ― and longevity.”

The sort of rapid vaccine development associated with the coronavirus is unprecedented in human history. Experts said it was a product of decades of research, including into the development of the mRNA technique, as well as federal efforts through the Trump administration’s “Warp Speed” operation.

Pfizer did not use Warp Speed money to underwrite its research, but Moderna did. Both have secured advance purchases and both expect to profit from sales, though the Trump administration has said the goal is to make sure all Americans get the vaccine for free.

“The progress here, I think, does reflect this all-hands-on-deck approach, which has been taken since January by the entire scientific community ― that being NIH, academic centers and industry all working together in an unprecedented and seamless way,” NIH Director Francis Collins said. “Operation Warp Speed came along to make sure that all parts of the government were working together, moving swiftly.”

The news from Pfizer and Moderna comes just as the U.S. is setting new daily records for COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, with deaths rising as well. The situation looks more dire than it has at any point since the pandemic’s early phases, when the virus was brand-new to scientists and providers were still figuring out how to treat it.

Medicine has now developed much better therapeutics, which has helped to reduce fatality rates. But rising caseloads are overwhelming providers in hot spots like the Dakotas and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas ― and even if the early returns from Pfizer and Moderna hold up, it will be many months before most of the population can get vaccinations, given production timetables.

Distribution will be a huge challenge of its own, especially since the mRNA vaccines require cold storage, although Moderna’s does not appear to require the same sub-freezing temperatures as Pfizer’s.

For those reasons, even experts enthusiastic about the vaccine trials say it’s critical that Americans, and their political leaders, not become complacent.

“It’s more promising evidence that science will help us end this pandemic, and more reason for everyone to be especially vigilant now to stop this wave of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths,” Joshua Sharfstein, a former FDA deputy commissioner who is now a vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told HuffPost.

“We should not let the accomplishment of an effective vaccine have us feel we can let our guard down,” Fauci said on the NIH phone call. “In fact, it should be an incentive to double down.”

COVID-19 was once thought to mainly affect the lungs, but throughout the pandemic we’ve learned that’s certainly not the case.

Everyone reacts to the coronavirus in different ways: Some people lose their taste and smell, while others experience sky-high fevers, difficulty breathing or weeks of fatigue. There have also been reports of “COVID toes,” hair loss, blood clots and rashes. 

Now, more anecdotal reports are surfacing that the infection may have an impact on oral health. After being diagnosed with and recovering from COVID-19, people are sharing stories of how their teeth or gums weakened, with some saying that their teeth became discolored, broke or fell out.

It’s too soon to confirm a clear, well-established link between the coronavirus and oral health, and doctors will need much more data to figure out precisely what’s happening. But some health experts suspect that the coronavirus may directly infect the blood vessels and disrupt blood flow to our gums, teeth and tongue, causing pain and decay.

Back in February, Diana Berrent’s 12-year-old son, Spencer, became sick with COVID-19. His sinuses clogged up, and he developed a headache along with prolonged fatigue. Spencer eventually recovered from the disease and figured his bout with the coronavirus was over, Berrent said. Then, earlier this month, his bottom (adult) teeth started to feel loose, and eventually, one fell out. The odd thing: When the tooth came out, there was no blood at all.

A quick search on Survivor Corps ― a group founded by Berrent dedicated to COVID-19 patients ― will pull up hundreds of personal stories from COVID-19 survivors who have experienced similar issues. There are reports of teeth that have turned gray or become loose, and gums that are painful and sensitive. Much of the time, these patients have no other known oral issues and are seemingly healthy.

More than 116,000 people have joined the Survivor Corps community. Many of its members share their symptoms as they manifest, which means the group has been able to identify some of the odder coronavirus-related symptoms — such as COVID toes, hair loss and now dental decay — quickly, Berrent said. Sometimes, they’re are even shared in the group before they hit the media or research papers.

“We see things in real time,” Berrent told HuffPost, noting that tons of survivors have come forward with dental issues over the last several weeks.

It’s possible that these dental-related symptoms are going underrecognized and being attributed to other causes, just as joint pain and hair loss once were. 

So what could be the explanation? Experts have a few theories:

Oral side effects may be a blood flow issue 

William Li, a vascular biologist and medical director of the Angiogenesis Foundation, suspects that the dental deterioration in COVID-19 patients could ultimately be a problem with blood flow.

The coronavirus is already known to infect and attacks blood vessels, which can lead to clots and clogged blood flow. If blood can’t readily reach our organs, damage can occur. That’s why doctors have seen all sorts of coronavirus-related complications within the heart, lungs, intestine, brain and kidneys.

Turns out the same may be true with the oral cavity.

“Your jaw is very richly fed with blood vessels,” Li told HuffPost. “We’ve got lots of teeth, sensitive gums, we’ve got a tongue and taste buds that need to be nurtured.”

The gums are “extremely vascularized,” and inside the tooth is the dental pulp, or the “living, breathing part of the tooth” that is packed with blood vessels along with nerves, Li said.

The underlying vascular damage that COVID-19 wreaks on the body can persist even after the disease is gone, and over time it can cause dental flare-ups. In Spencer’s case, the fact that there was no blood when the tooth fell out suggests blood flow was obstructed, which may have caused his tooth to deteriorate, Li said.

The mouth could harbor the virus

What’s also interesting is that when the coronavirus infects the body, it latches onto a part of our cells called the ACE2 receptors. These receptors are rich in certain areas of the body, including the lungs (hence the respiratory damage COVID-19 inflicts). The mouth, it turns out, is also flush with ACE2 receptors. 

“The fact that it has ACE2 receptors means there is a theoretical, biological pathway by which the virus could have a direct effect [on the mouth],” Eric Cioe-Pena, director of global health at Northwell Health in New York, told HuffPost. 

In fact, earlier research shows that because of the high prevalence of these receptors in the mouth, the oral cavity could be a great environment for the coronavirus to camp out and replicate.

Other viruses also directly infect the oral cavity, such as the Coxsackievirus virus behind hand, foot and mouth disease and the herpes virus, Cioe-Pena said. 

There’s also HIV, which can cause oral pain, bone loss around the teeth and dental decay due to immunodeficiency. In addition, many other viruses can affect the immune system in such a way that bacteria can build up in the mouth and lead to a host of other issues. 

“There’s an intimate connection between teeth and the rest of our body,” Cioe-Pena said.

More data will tell us what’s really going on with COVID-19 and our teeth

It’s crucial to recognize that more research needs to be done before experts can make any solid conclusions about how, why and if COVID-19 might damage people’s teeth.

“We don’t have enough data yet to know whether this is purely a temporal association or causation. The short answer is: It’s too early to tell,” Cioe-Pena said.

Doctors are just starting to put together the clues to uncover the full magnitude of COVID-19. This is still a new disease, and we have yet to understand all of its effects. 

“COVID is like a thousand-piece puzzle,” Li said. “You can start seeing some of the big pieces of it put together, but there are so many pieces in different corners, and this dental piece is sort of the new area of the puzzle that people are starting to work on.”

Experts are still learning about COVID-19. The information in this story is what was known or available as of publication, but guidance can change as scientists discover more about the virus. Please check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the most updated recommendations.

In the nine days since Donald Trump was projected to lose the presidential election, he has insisted — repeatedly and without evidence — that the vote was rigged against him.

“The Radical Left Democrats, working with their partner, the Fake News Media, are trying to STEAL this Election,” he tweeted Monday morning. “We won’t let them!”

Trump extended his series of tweeted complaints on Monday to laws on ballot signatures in Georgia: “The Fake recount going on in Georgia means nothing because they are not allowing signatures to be looked at and verified. Break the unconstitutional Consent Decree!” he wrote.

Such a specific claim is easy to check: It’s wrong. Georgia is not only allowed to look at and verify ballot signatures but is required to, as the state’s Republican secretary of state has pointed out. 

But the label Twitter attached to Trump’s tweet doesn’t convey that it’s wrong. Instead, it just says his “claim about election fraud is disputed,” as if there is some legitimate debate about the Georgia signature law when there is not.

By suggesting that Trump’s false and deceptive assertions are only disputed, Twitter is enabling — and even legitimizing — the president’s disinformation campaign as he refuses to concede or commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

The platform has done this on dozens of recent Trump tweets that are clearly false or groundless. Over this past weekend alone, as his supporters flooded the streets of Washington, D.C., to rally against supposed electoral fraud, Trump tweeted that “millions of ballots” were “altered by Democrats,” voting technology glitches were part of an effort to “steal votes” and people voted after the election was over, among a litany of other allegations of vote-rigging. 

Journalists and fact-checkers have already debunked all of these evidence-free claims, which remain on Twitterwith notices calling them “disputed.”

As Trump’s preferred mass communications platform, where he has nearly 89 million followers, Twitter has long grappled with the deluge of misinformation he spews there. In the run-up to the election, Twitter hid Trump’s false and baseless claims behind labels warning that they “might be misleading” and restricted them from being liked or retweeted — a tepid but unprecedented measure taken to protect the integrity of the vote. 

That changed after President-elect Joe Biden was projected to be the winner. 

Twitter directed HuffPost to a page for its recent policy changes, implemented Thursday. The platform now only labels tweets containing election-related misinformation instead of restricting their visibility or shareability.

“People are able to engage with labeled Tweets, however, as with all Tweets with labels, they are de-amplified on our service,” a Twitter spokesperson told HuffPost in an emailed statement.

“Twitter is trying to be apolitical here,” said Hany Farid, a professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.

But by labeling Trump’s tweets about voter fraud in a way that suggests they might actually be accurate, Twitter is, in fact, granting Trump a political advantage.

As the president continues to spread political misinformation across Twitter and other platforms, Farid is concerned about what he calls the “downstream effect.”

“It starts with Trump, but that’s not where it stops,” he said. “It’s the [Steve Bannons] and Alex Joneses and Fox Newses and QAnons of the world — they take [Trump’s unfounded narratives] and start to proliferate and amplify, and then you have the mess that is the misinformation apocalypse that we’re all dealing with right now. Trump is the tip of the iceberg.”

And though Twitter’s pre-election policy of restricting and suppressing election-related misinformation was not perfect, it did temporarily stifle the circulation of false claims from Trump and other political figures. But Twitter ended that policy too soon, Farid suggested.

“People were very concerned in the lead-up to the election that [online misinformation] would actually interfere with our democracy, our ability to vote,” he said. “But that same fear is there today — that [online misinformation] could still interfere with the democratic process in terms of the handover of power from one president to another. That’s at least as serious of an issue.”

Facebook, YouTube and other tech giants have varied approaches to Trump’s barrage of fabrications throughout the election period. Although Twitter seemed to take perhaps the most aggressive stance at first, its context labels are now conspicuously vague and confusing.

On Monday, for example, when Trump falsely claimed on both Facebook and Twitter that he had won the election, Facebook appended a label noting that “Joe Biden is the projected winner of the 2020 US Presidential Election.” Twitter’s label stated, simply: “Official sources called this election differently.”

There are contrastingviews as to whether such context labels are effective at alerting people to misinformation. One study from MIT found that the application of context labels to certain social media posts led some people to incorrectly conclude that all unlabeled posts therefore contain accurate information.

Experts say that applying context labels in conjunction with other moderation measures, as Twitter did initially, is a far more effective way to limit the spread of false and misleading claims than using labels alone.

As for Trump, his days of blasting out conspiracy theories, falsehoods and hoaxes on Twitter and, more generally, violating the platform’s terms of service without any lasting consequences, may be numbered. His exemption from regular enforcement as the U.S. president will expire when he leaves office on Jan. 20.

President-elect Joe Biden said Monday that the biggest threat posed by President Donald Trump’s refusal to cooperate with Biden’s transition team is that “more people may die” if he can’t access the outgoing administration’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plans. 

When Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris delivered remarks on the economy in Wilmington, Delaware, an NBC reporter asked Biden what he saw as the biggest threat to his transition, “given President Trump’s unprecedented attempt to obstruct and delay a smooth transfer of power.” 

“More people may die if we don’t coordinate,” Biden answered. “As my chief of staff, Ron Klain, would say … a vaccine is important. It’s of little use until you’re vaccinated. So how do we get the vaccine, how do we get over 300 million Americans vaccinated? What’s the game plan?”

Trump has refused to concede the election, despite all major media networks projecting Biden, who is far ahead in both the popular and electoral votes, as the winner. Trump’s campaign continues to allege voter fraud and ballot-counting irregularities, but lacks the evidence to prove it.

The Trump-appointed head of the General Services Administration has refused to acknowledge Biden as the president-elect, obstructing his team’s access to necessary funds, offices and personnel that would facilitate a smooth transfer of power.

Part of that transition includes sharing vital information from Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s program that facilitates and accelerates the development, manufacturing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

“It’s a huge, huge, huge undertaking to get it done, prioritize those greatest in need, and work our way through it ― and also cooperate with the World Health Organization and the rest of the world in dealing with this,” Biden said.

“If we have to wait until Jan. 20 to start that planning, it puts us behind over a month, month and a half,” he explained. “So it’s important that it be done, that there be coordination ― now, or as rapidly as we can get that done.”

In his remarks on Monday, the president-elect also implored Americans to continue wearing face masks as the nation heads into the winter with COVID-19 cases surging.

“It’s about patriotism,” Biden said of wearing masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. “It’s about being patriotic. It’s about saving lives, for real; it’s not a hyperbole.”

Meanwhile, Trump and many Republican leaders claim that mask mandates take away Americans’ freedoms and don’t make a difference in curbing the virus’ spread. Public health experts have long said that wearing a mask can help stop the spread of the virus and save lives.

“I strongly urge you to do it,” Biden said. “There’s nothing macho about not wearing a mask.” 

Michelle Obama shared some candid reflections Monday on the current state of the White House, calling out President Donald Trump for his refusal to concede the election and take part in a peaceful transition of power to President-Elect Joe Biden.

The former first lady shared her poignant thoughts on Instagram along with a snapshot of herself and President Barack Obama on Trump’s Inauguration Day in 2017.

“This week, I’ve been reflecting a lot on where I was four years ago. [Hillary] Clinton had just been dealt a tough loss by a far closer margin than the one we’ve seen this year. I was hurt and disappointed — but the votes had been counted and Donald Trump had won. The American people had spoken,” she began.

Obama explained that “one of the great responsibilities of the presidency” is to listen when the American people speak and recalled that she and her husband had instructed their staffs to “run a respectful, seamless transition of power — one of the hallmarks of American democracy.”

“We invited the folks from the president-elect’s team into our offices and prepared detailed memos for them, offering what we’d learned over the past eight years,” she wrote. 

Obama admitted that none of that was “easy” for her, as Trump had “spread racist lies about my husband that had put my family in danger.”

“That wasn’t something I was ready to forgive. But I knew that, for the sake of our country, I had to find the strength and maturity to put my anger aside. So I welcomed Melania Trump into the White House and talked with her about my experience, answering every question she had — from the heightened scrutiny that comes with being First Lady to what it’s like to raise kids in the White House,” she wrote, adding that it was the “right thing to do” as “democracy is so much bigger than anybody’s ego.”

The Chicago native went on to say that “our love of country requires us to respect the results of an election even when we don’t like them or wish it had gone differently — the presidency doesn’t belong to any one individual or any one party.”

“To pretend that it does, to play along with these groundless conspiracy theories — whether for personal or political gain — is to put our country’s health and security in danger,” she said, before concluding with:

“This isn’t a game. So I want to urge all Americans, especially our nation’s leaders, regardless of party, to honor the electoral process and do your part to encourage a smooth transition of power, just as sitting presidents have done throughout our history.”

Obama’s remarks came on the heels of her husband telling NPR in an interview that aired on Monday that Trump is simply “denying reality.”

Barack Obama also called the current president’s unwillingness to take part in the transition to Biden’s White House “yet one more example of how Donald Trump’s breach of basic democratic norms is hurting the American people.”

Despite the election having been called for Biden earlier this month, Trump has not yet conceded. He has also spent the better part of the last two weeks going on Twitter tirades in which he has erroneously claimed that he won and that the Democrats have “stolen” the election.

A 7-year-old girl in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur was found dead on Sunday and it is being reported that she was killed for an occult ritual. 

Reports said the girl was found dead in Bhadras village in Kanpur and four men have been arrested. 

NDTV reported that a couple paid two men, who were the girl’s neighbours, to perform an occult ritual. The men got drunk, tried to rape the girl and killed her. 

The report said that they cut out her liver and presented it to the couple who paid them so that they could have children. 

The accused have reportedly told the police they assaulted the minor and strangled her to death. 

The Indian Express quoted Kanpur Nagar DIG Preetinder Singh as saying the girl went missing on the night of Diwali. 

The report quoted Singh as saying, “Next morning, her mutilated body was found around a kilometer from the village near a jungle. Senior officers, along with forensic teams and dog squad, visited the spot and later we found that two youths from the neighborhood had abducted the girl on the pretext of giving her a packet of potato chips.The duo tried to sexually assault her, and when faced resistance they tied her hands.” 

PTI reported that the accused have been charged under the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has taken note of the heinous crime and directed officials to take strict action against the accused.

He has also directed the officials to extend a financial help of Rs five lakh to the victim’s family.

The chief minister has said the case would be heard in a fast-track court so that the accused are punished at the earliest.

(With PTI inputs)

While the sudden rise in Covid-19 cases in Delhi has gradually reduced over the last few days, health minister Satyendar Jain said on Tuesday that the high number of cases in the national capital was because “patients from outside” were getting tested using a Delhi address. 

Jain was quoted by ANI as saying, “There are many patients who are from outside but they get tests conducted here using Delhi address. We can’t refuse anyone for tests. So, that results in an increase in numbers. Almost 25-30% outsiders are getting their tests done in Delhi.” 

Jain reiterated again that the peak of the third wave of Covid-19 in Delhi was over and the positivity rate had reduced. He told ANI, “Positivity rate is now below 13% from 15.33% last week. Though we’re in the 3rd wave, the peak is now over. From here, we’ll definitely see a downtrend. 16,500 beds have been reserved for Covid 19 and now there are around 8000 beds available.”

On Monday, 3,797 people tested positive for the novel coronavirus, taking the total number of cases in Delhi to 4,89,202. Delhi recorded 99 deaths, taking the total number of deaths to 7,713. 

Delhi had recorded 46,159 during the week of November 1 to November 8, the highest in India. 

The National Commission for Women (NCW), in response to an RTI application, has said that it maintains no specific data on ‘love jihad’ cases, just about a month after the commission tweeted that its chairperson Rekha Sharma discussed issues including a “rise in love jihad cases” with Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari. 

Ashoka University professor Aniket Aga, who shared NCW’s response to the RTI on Twitter, told HuffPost India over e-mail that he filed the RTI on 23 October 2020.

“The NCW is a statutory body and the Governor is a constitutional position. When Rekha Sharma officially met Bhagat Singh Koshyari on 20 October, she discussed ‘rise in love jihad cases’ in Maharashtra, among other issues. If the NCW now claims that it has no data on love jihad cases, on what basis did its Chairperson make the claim?” he said.

‘Love jihad’ is a term used by many right-wing activists to describe what they allege is a conspiracy by Muslim men to trick Hindu women into relationships and ultimately religious conversion. Twitter users pointed out last month that the term is both communal and patriarchal, as it completely disregards the woman’s agency in the relationship.

The centre told the Parliament in February that ‘love jihad’ is not defined under the law. “The term ‘Love Jihad’ is not defined under the extant laws. No such case of ‘Love Jihad’ has been reported by any of the Central agencies,” Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy said to a question by Congress MP Benny Behanan, according to The Hindu.

ALSO READ: #SackRekhaSharma, Says Twitter, After Old Tweets Spark Outrage

Last month, after the NCW announced that Sharma met Koshiyari and discussed “rise in love jihad cases” among other issues, a controversy erupted, with several calling for her resignation. 

Screenshots of her old tweets also began circulating on social media, with some finding her old misogynist and offensive tweets. Sharma, who has a verified Twitter handle, made her account private and claimed that there was “suspicious activity” on her account.

Over her illustrious 40-year career onscreen, Meryl Streep has mastered river rafting, playing the violin, the French culinary arts, opera singing and a globe-spanning command of accents. 

Now, she’s about to add rapping to her overstuffed résumé, according to Ryan Murphy, who teased that fans will see a new side of Streep when “The Prom” arrives on Netflix Dec. 11.

The Oscar winner plays fading musical theater star Dee Dee Allen in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical, which boasts an all-star cast, including James Corden, Nicole Kidman and Kerry Washington. 

To give the movie musical an extra-special something, Murphy and team added an original closing number called “Wear Your Crown” centered around the women in the film.

“I told the songwriting team and the composer, ‘Let’s do something upbeat, that we can send people out in a celebratory fashion,’” the prolific producer told Variety in an interview published on Monday. “Let’s have all the women do the vocal tracks.” 

“Furthermore, let’s have Meryl Streep rap,” he added. 

“They were like, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I want her to rap. I need her to rap,’” Murphy continued. “They laughed, and they went off and wrote the song ‘Wear Your Crown,’ and it’s optimistic and makes you feel good. It has a message of fighting intolerance and being proud of who you are. We wanted to leave young people with that feeling.”

And, per Murphy, Streep was more than up for the task, as she nailed her verse on the first try. 

“I think Meryl fans are going to go crazy for it,” he added. “I have a video of Meryl rapping. She was so good that we used her first take, which just goes to show you there’s nothing that Meryl Streep cannot do.”

While Streep has consistently flexed her musical abilities in recent years, rapping is still a relatively new frontier.

Fans will remember that her role as the Witch in Stephen Sondheim’s fairy-tale musical “Into the Woods” required her to speak-sing several verses.

Corden at the time said that her rapping skills were so well finessed that a “second career beckons,” adding that she was “less an Eminem, more a 50 Cent type,” according to Vanity Fair. 

But don’t expect her to be dropping any expletive-laden bars in “The Prom,” which Murphy told Variety was a “love letter to Hollywood musicals” suitable for all ages.

“I’ve never done something so old-fashioned. My work tends to be a little bit edgier,” he told the outlet. “I really set out to make something that was for everyone, something that parents can watch with their kids. I was excited about the discipline of making an old-fashioned movie that is a Valentine to an industry that has gone away.” 

Chandigarh: When 42-year-old Harnek Singh, a farmer from Retgarh village in Punjab, planned his son Jashanjeet’s marriage, he wanted to give it a meaningful twist. 

When Jashanjeet got married on Monday, instead of singing the traditional ‘ghori’ songs, his family held flags of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan) and shouted slogans against the BJP-led central government for bringing in three controversial farm laws. 

“We want to show to PM Narendra Modi that we are fighting a 24x7 battle against his Farm Acts and we have not forgotten the pain even during one of the happiest times in our life. If the government was so serious about safeguarding our interests, why has it not ensured MSP in the new farm legislation?” Harnek Singh told HuffPost India over the phone. 

Farmers in Punjab have been protesting against the central government since September, when Parliament passed three farm laws—Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020. The Modi government didn’t back down even after ally Shiromani Akali Dal walked out of the National Democratic Alliance in protest.

Protesters say that since the majority of the farmers in Punjab have small landholdings of 2-5 acres and cannot afford to transport their crops even outside their own village, the new legislation will force them to sell their crops as per the buyers’ will. 

They have also demanded that if the government wants to enforce the farm legislation in agrarian states like Punjab and Haryana, it should ensure MSP for all the crops. 

Speaking to HuffPost India, Harnek Singh said that nothing could have been more auspicious than protesting and shouting slogans to safeguard farmers’ rights. 

“My son is a farmer’s son and hence welcomed the move in his marriage. Our relatives also supported us by shouting slogans in our favour,” said Singh. 

This is not the first time that farmers have raised slogans against the Modi government during wedding processions. On October 23, another farmer, Yadvinder Singh from village Karancho, also raised slogans and protested during his marriage against the farm laws.

Earlier this month, HuffPost India reported how the central government has choking Punjab by suspending the railway services in the state. Despite farmers clearing the railway tracks, the government has not resumed services of goods trains, causing huge losses to the local industry. 

Many farmers like Harnek Singh have taken a pledge to continue their stir against the farm laws until the government takes it back. 

“Today, I have to be at home to perform some rituals with the newlyweds. But tomorrow again I, along with my son, will join back protests against the farm laws in our area,” he said. 

The virus that causes Covid-19 was doing the rounds well before 2020 hit, a new study from Italy suggests.

The pandemic peaked in Italy at the end of March this year, however research from the same country found specific SARS-CoV-2 antibodies were present in blood samples taken from people as far back as September 2019. 

Researchers analysed SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in blood samples of 959 asymptomatic individuals enrolled in a lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020.

The hope was to track the date of onset of Covid-19, as well as frequency and geographic variations across the Italian regions.

Covid antibodies were detected in 111 people, the study found – and 14% of these had antibodies dating back to September 2019.

There was a cluster of positive cases (more than 30%) in the second week of February 2020, with the highest number of cases located in Lombardy.

“This study shows an unexpected very early circulation of SARS-CoV-2 among asymptomatic individuals in Italy several months before the first patient was identified,” wrote researches. “Finding SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in asymptomatic people before the Covid-19 outbreak in Italy may reshape the history of pandemic.”

Italy’s first official cases of Covid-19 were recorded on January 30, 2020, when two tourists from China tested positive in Rome.

The virus wasn’t actually identified by officials in Wuhan until the end of December 2019 – prior to then, we didn’t know it existed.

While studies have suggested the virus was circulating in December last year, none have gone back as far as September 2019, though one study of sewage revealed the virus was present in Milan and Turin’s sewer systems as early as December. 

Meanwhile a French hospital retested samples from pneumonia patients and discovered that one of its patients had Covid-19 back in December, too. 

In the UK

Dr Julian Tang, honorary associate professor in respiratory sciences and a clinical virologist at the University of Leicester, previously told HuffPost UK it’s possible the virus was circulating in the UK in December 2019.

NEW DELHI — As Delhi battles its worst phase in the coronavirus pandemic, authorities drew up plans on Tuesday to reinstate some curbs, such as lockdowns of some markets, if necessary, although elsewhere in the nation new infections are falling.

India added 29,163 cases over the past 24 hours for its lowest such increase since at least mid-July, government data showed, taking its tally of infections to 8.87 million, second only to the United States, and a death toll of 130,519.

Both infections and deaths have fallen from a mid-September high but the situation is different in Delhi, a city of 20 million swathed in air pollution, where crowds thronged markets for last week’s festival of Diwali.

With his palms joined together during a live broadcast on Twitter, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal pleaded for people to wear masks and maintain social distancing.

“If...we see that social distancing and mask-wearing is not being followed in any bazaar and there’s a possibility of those areas becoming a hotspot, we should be allowed to close them down for a few days,” he added.

Kejriwal said he had written to Centre for permission to impose the curbs.

Since the middle of May, the capital has gradually opened markets and public transport shut during the early phase of the pandemic.

Delhi, which recorded its highest infections and deaths last week, reported on Monday a fall in new infections to 3,797, but Central authorities have warned it to be ready for as many as 15,000 cases a day.

As a popular time of year for weddings nears, Kejriwal’s government has also asked Centre for a further cut in the number of guests at such celebrations, to 50 from 200.

The Delhi government’s online tracker showed just 116 beds available, from a total of 1,327 in intensive care units equipped with a ventilator. Central officials have promised to make hundreds more available soon.

Delhi’s air has high levels of tiny pollutants of the size known as PM 2.5, which doctors say can enter the nose to weaken the inner lining of the lungs and help the coronavirus spread.

In February 2019, when the Kerala high court appointed a woman judge to hear the sexual assault case of an actress, in which top Malayalam actor Dileep is a key accused, there was hope that the long-delayed trial would finally proceed without hitches.

21 months later, the survivor had to approach the high court again, this time to ask that her case be shifted to “any other court”. The reason, she said, was the harassment unleashed by Dileep’s lawyers, which the judge Honey M. Varghese allegedly “facilitated”.

“There were many occasions in the last 11 months in which I cried inconsolably inside the special court room, unable to withstand the harassment and character assassination unleashed by lawyers representing the eighth accused [referring to Dileep]. Though the judge was a woman, she remained insensitive on all such occasions and facilitated the attack under the guise of cross-examination which lasted for more than five hours. I don’t have any hope about a free trial at the designated court. The case must be shifted to any other court immediately and I would not insist like in the past to have a woman judge at the chair,” the survivor’s counsel told justice V.G. Arun on Monday.

In a rare turn of events, A. Suresan, the public prosecutor representing the Kerala government, also backed the survivor’s concerns and urged the high court to shift the case to another court immediately, alleging that the current judge violated cross-examination procedures and took a stand beneficial to the accused in the case. The high court has reserved its order in the petition.

The trial in the 2017 case had begun in January this year in a special CBI court and was stayed by the Kerala high court earlier this month after the prosecution and survivor alleged that the court was “hostile” and “partisan”.

Almost four years since the actress was sexually assaulted in a vehicle at night, allegedly by men hired by Dileep, the case is dragging on with no end in sight. The survivor and her supporters have alleged that Dileep, the eighth accused in the case, is using his influence to weaken the charges against him. 

Four main witnesses in the case, who are also actors, have turned hostile and backtracked from their earlier statements which implicated Dileep, who is currently out on bail. A key approver in the case has alleged intimidation from people he said identified themselves as “Dileep’s aides”. The influential actor and producer has obtained a gag order preventing media organisations from reporting on the trial—a tactic now used by many powerful men in cases of sexual assault. He has also managed to isolate the survivor within the Malayalam film industry—she and most of her supporters resigned from the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (A.M.M.A, currently headed by superstar Mohanlal) over the past few years after the industry body indicated through its actions and statements that their sympathies were with Dileep.

“My client has raised very serious concerns regarding criminal jurisprudence and natural justice. I have conveyed to the high court all her grievances, especially the inhuman way she was treated in the trial court and the organised way the accused had tried to manipulate the whole issue. It’s an extraordinary case with multiple dimensions.  The survivor deserves justice and she never backtracked from any of her statements against the accused since the untoward incident. I feel there is solid ground for the request to shift the trial court,’’ senior lawyer S. Srikumar, who appeared on behalf of the survivor in the Kerala high court, told HuffPost India.

The survivor’s brave stand had inspired many women in Kerala’s film industry to speak up about the discrimination and harassment that they faced, long before the #MeToo movement kicked off in India.  

Allegations against trial court

Judge Honey M. Varghese was assigned the high-profile case based on an early plea by the survivor that the trial should be conducted in the court of a female judge. The case has a total of 355 witnesses, including many well-known names from the Malayalam film industry. Over 80 witnesses have been examined so far, including actors Siddique, Edavela Babu, Bhama, and Bindhu Panicker—all four have turned hostile.

In her plea at the high court, the survivor has alleged that apart from the harassment by Dileep’s counsel, the special court failed to record some parts of her testimony without any lawful justification. She also complained that the trial court did not restrict the number of lawyers for the accused present inside the court hall when the petitioner was being cross-examined and failed to uphold the spirit of the in-camera trial. Over a dozen lawyers who had no direct engagement with the case were present in the court whenever the cross-examinations of the survivor and witnesses were held, she said.

The government prosecutor said in the Kerala high court that he finds merit in all the allegations raised by the survivor’s lawyer against the trial court. This rarely happens, said Hareesh Vasudevan, a lawyer in the Kerala high court. 

Vasudevan also pointed out that Dileep’s actions have led to a delay in the trial.

“The charge sheet in the case was filed in November 2017 by the police after a speedy and comprehensive investigation. But the trial was delayed for more than two years because Dileep approached the high court and Supreme Court to get a copy of the video footage of the sexual assault recovered by the police in the case. So the trial in the case only began in January this year after the apex court ordered handing over of the footage with strict regulations,’’ pointed out Hareesh.  

The state government also informed the high court that Judge Varghese failed to record a major disclosure by actress Manju Warrier, a prime witness and Dileep’s former wife. The allegation was raised in its affidavit submitted in response to the demand for transferring the trial to another court.

The affidavit by the state government, The New Indian Express  reported, said that on February 27, 2020, when Manju Warrier was cross-examined, the defence asked her several questions with the intention of character assassination.

“There were questions asked to prove that she hadn’t contacted her daughter for years. In the re-examination, the special prosecutor asked her when she had last contacted her daughter. Manju Warrier deposed that her daughter had contacted her over the phone on February 24, 2020, and requested her not to depose anything against her father. Manju Warrier also said she replied to her daughter that she was duty-bound to reveal the truth before the court. This disclosure was not recorded by the Special Judge saying such a statement in the re-examination was inadmissible. The court rejected the special prosecutor’s request in this regard,” the newspaper quoted from the affidavit. 

Approver alleges intimidation

The investigation into the case took a political turn last week when the Kasaragod district police registered a case against M. Pradeep Kottathala, office secretary of Malayalam actor and politician K.B. Ganesh Kumar, for threatening and trying to influence key approver Vipin Lal. Ganesh is an MLA from the Kerala Congress (B), part of the state’s ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF).

Vipin Lal created headlines for the first time in July 2017 by disclosing that Dileep was involved in the conspiracy behind the assault. At the time, Vipin Lal was a remand prisoner in the Kakkanad district jail near Kochi. While Dileep denied the accusation then and A.M.M.A expressed solidarity with him, the actor was arrested within three weeks of the revelation. After the arrest, Ganesh had visited Dileep at the sub-jail in Aluva and told reporters that he was firmly behind the actor.

Ganesh did not respond to repeated requests for comment but the Kasargod Police confirmed to HuffPost India that it had filed a case against Pradeep for trying to influence Vipin Lal and his family members through repeated phone calls offering money. 

Vipin Lal told HuffPost India that he and his family members had been getting calls and letters urging them to change his statement in the case since January this year. He said his confidential statement to the police implicating Dileep had resulted in the arrest of the actor.

“It was during January third week that a person impersonating a staffer of Dileep’s lawyer called my mother from a jewellery shop in Kasaragod. He reached there knowing that my father was a former employee of the shop. After getting the phone number of my mother from the shop, the impersonator contacted her repeatedly to force me to change my statement to the police,’’ he said. 

Police identified Kottathala based on footage from the surveillance camera at the shop. They also found a copy of the identity card Kottathala produced to check in to a local lodge. Police sub-inspector Anil Kumar told HuffPost India that they are trying to trace the owner of a SIM card registered in Tamil Nadu from which Vipin Lal was regularly getting phone calls with the demand to change his statement. 

Cracks in the film industry

Despite the serious charges he is facing, Dileep is still considered one of the biggest stars in Kerala. Dileep started his career as a mimicry artist and slogged it out in small roles for years before getting good movies in the late 90s and early 2000s. Around the time Mammootty and Mohanlal began to mostly play alpha-male characters, Dileep carved a niche for himself with his comic timing in movies such as Punjabi House and Thenkasipattanam. He became a star in his own right after the mega hit Meesa Madhavan in 2002, opposite his now wife Kavya Madhavan. His first in-house production was CID Moosa (2003), after which his Graand Production has produced a number of films including Twenty:20 (2008), in which almost all A.M.M.A members acted for free to raise funds for welfare schemes.

He’s also a theatre owner and enjoys the support of a wide network of producers, distributors, and theatre-owners.

According to the prosecution, Dileep had extreme animosity towards the survivor, who had earlier accused him of taking away her chances in the industry using his clout. The actor’s alleged grouse was that the survivor sided with Manju Warrier, an award-winning actress who left the industry after her marriage to Dileep in 1998. He was also allegedly annoyed by the survivor reporting to Manju Warrier about his relationship with Kavya Madhavan, whom he married in 2016.

Manju Warrier is now active again in the Malayalam film world while Kavya Madhavan stopped acting after her marriage to Dileep.

Soon after the assault in 2017, the Kerala government had deputed a three-member committee, headed by retired justice K. Hema. to look into the various issues confronting women in the Malayalam film industry. In its report submitted to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in January 2020, the committee has concluded that sexual harassment and the practice of casting couch are rampant in the industry. The commission also found several grave issues which included blatant human rights violations at shooting locations, and lack of adequate provisions of restrooms and changing rooms for women artists.

The committee, which also comprised retired IAS officer K.B. Valsala Kumari and actress Sharada, had also presented evidence of several instances of sexual abuse and listed several cyber-attacks, targeting women artists on social media. The commission also pointed out in its report that both male and female artists hesitated to give evidence and testify before it out of fear. 

Activists have also condemned the gag order obtained by Dileep against media coverage of the case. While seeking the order, Dileep argued that publishing matters concerning the in-camera proceedings in the case would injure his reputation and violate his fundamental right for a fair trial. He had also demanded protection under Section 327(2) of the CrPC, which mandates that rape inquiries and trials should be conducted in-camera; and Section 327(3), which mandates that it would be unlawful to print or publish any matter related to in-camera proceedings without the court’s previous permission.

“These legal provisions are originally intended to safeguard the identity and privacy of survivors in a male dominated society that attempts to shame women who have faced sexual assault and harassment. On the other hand, these provisions are now being used to protect the reputation of a person accused of committing an offense of rape,” said J. Sandhya, an activist and lawyer based in Thiruvananthapuram.

This opinion was backed by Parvathy Thiruvothu, the prominent actress who recently resigned from A.M.M.A in protest against the comments made by its general secretary Edavela Babu in a media interview denigrating the survivor.

“In sexual assault cases, there must be a top priority to protect the privacy and dignity of survivors. However, responsible reporting of broad facts in rape trials would help protect larger interests of justice. In this case, the accused had obtained a gag order by portraying himself as the victim,” said Parvathy, who is a member of the Women in Cinema Collective, which was formed after the assault.

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates on Monday questioned the logic behind some Americans’ refusal to wear masks to protect against the spread of COVID-19, jokingly comparing them to nudists on his new podcast.  

On the first episode of “Bill Gates and Rashida Jones Ask Big Questions,” a limited podcast series, Gates and Jones discussed the politicization of masks in America. Gates called the backlash against them “such a weird thing.”  

“I mean what are these, like, nudists?” asked Gates, who has committed millions of dollars to coronavirus vaccine research through his foundation. “We ask you to wear pants and, you know, no American says — or very few Americans say — that that’s, like, some terrible thing.”

“Right,” said Jones. “If you want to get back to normal life any time sooner, wear a mask, or don’t wear a mask and stay at home. ... You kind of have to just deal with what it is.”

She went on to ask why there was “ever a time when we thought masks were not effective? That’s what I don’t understand.”

“The evidence” that “a simple mask for the masses ... including people who are spreading without knowing it” was available as early as April, Gates responded.

“Now it’s overwhelmingly clear that the upside is gigantic,” he added, going on to reference an October study done by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The research “actually shows a projection that, if everybody wore masks, how many deaths we would avoid. ... It’s over 100,000 deaths.”

Gates and Jones also spoke with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, who stressed that straightforward measures — like mask-wearing and social distancing — are what will be needed in moving toward a post-coronavirus world. 

“You absolutely have to do things that sound so simple that people think they’re maybe not relevant,” Fauci said. “Wearing a mask, keeping a distance, avoiding crowds, being outdoors as much as you possibly can — weather permitted — and washing your hands. We have seen what happens when you don’t do that by the very unfortunate experiences that have become very public now in the United States.”

Listen to the entire podcast here.