The Evening Wrap Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. We hope you are staying home and staying safe. Here are the big stories that you need to follow today: Intensive Trace The number of active cases in the country crossed 1,600 today, with the death toll standing at 54. A good number of new cases were from tests conducted on people who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area in March. Late this evening, for instance, Tamil Nadu’s COVID-19 tally crossed the 200 mark. “Another 110 persons test positive for COVID-19 in the State. All had taken part in the Nizamuddin conference,” Health Secretary Beela Rajesh said. Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba on Wednesday held a video conference with the Chief Secretaries of all the States regarding contact tracing of the convention’s attendees. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to hold a video call with all the Chief Ministers tomorrow. A government statement said Gauba “sensitised” the Chief Secretaries to the importance of conducting contact tracing of the Tablighi attendees (spread over multiple States) and enforcing quarantine procedures. The Delhi police on Tuesday registered a case against Maulana Saad and others of Tablighi Jamaat under Section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, read with Sections 269, 270, 271 and 120-B of the IPC, for violation of government directions on safety measures, including physical distancing. Tablighi Jamaat said in a statement that many participants could not disperse since all means of transport had stopped abruptly on March 24. This is a sensitive story in which it’s important to understand every aspect and the timeline of what took place. We have an excellent explainer and a round-up of the story so far here. COVID watch -- International In Spain, the number of COVID-19 cases crossed 100,000 on Wednesday. Overall fatalities caused by the disease rose to 9,053, from 8,189 on Tuesday. The daily death toll reached a record 864, though the increase was lower in percentage terms than during the previous days. Over 120,000 cases have also been reported from the U.S., with the death toll in New York City alone crossing 1,000. New Domicile Law for J&K The Centre has notified a new order that both redefines what ‘domicile’ means in the territory of Jammu and Kashmir and, for the first time, opens up jobs in the State to people from other parts of India. The term ‘domicile’ refers the status of being a “permanent resident” of a given jurisdiction. Until August 5, when the special status of J&K under article Article 370 and Article 35A was revoked, only the J&K Legislature could define “permanent residents”. But eight months after converting J&K into a Union Territory, the Centre has now changed the rules. As per its new order, now anyone “who has resided for a period of 15 years in the UT of J&K or has studied for a period of seven years and appeared in Class 10th /12th examination in an educational institution located in the UT of J&K or who is registered as a migrant by the Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner (Migrants) shall be deemed to be domicile.” Essentially this means that children of government officials from other states who have been serving in the territory for long would now be eligible to be deemed as “permanent residents”. They can now apply for any job in the State. Also, unlike earlier, only the lowest non-gazetted posts have been reserved for “domiciles”. In other words, residents from any part of the country can now apply for all gazetted and non-gazetted posts in J&K, except for Level IV non-gazetted jobs. Expectedly, this order has evoked fears of demographic shifts being planned in the State, and there was sharp criticism from J&K politicians across the spectrum. Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tweeted, “At a time when all our efforts & attention should be focused on the #COVID outbreak the government slips in a new domicile law for J&K. Insult is heaped on injury when we see the law offers none of the protections that had been promised.” Gear for the frontlines The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a response from the government on a petition filed by a medical professional to direct the availability of WHO-graded protective gear for medical staff fighting the COVID-19 outbreak. The court issued notice on the petition filed by Dr. Jerryl Banait, a practising medical professional, to provide protective gear, including Hazmat (hazardous material) suits, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), medical masks, goggles, face shield, respirators, shoe covers, head covers and coveralls/gowns to all health workers. Moratorium Option State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, and private sector lenders ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank have started activating the loan repayment moratorium option for customers. The RBI had last week announced that banks can offer this option to borrowers in view of the financial stress caused by the COVID-19-induced lockdown. SBI customers who want to avail the moratorium need to send an email to avail the options. The email address will depend on the circle from where the customer has taken the loan. The email addresses of all the circles have been mentioned in the SBI website. Customers who do not wish to avail the moratorium don’t need to take any action and may continue to pay as usual, the SBI said. Saving Exports In another development, the RBI announced more measures, specifically targeted at the export sector, to fight economic disruptions caused by the coronavirus. At present, the value of the goods or software exports made by exporters is required to be realised fully and repatriated to the country within a period of 9 months from the date of exports. However, the RBI has now extended this period to 15 months for exports made up to July 31, 2020. The measure, it said, is aimed at giving exporters more time to realise their receipts, especially from COVID-19-affected countries, and provide greater flexibility to negotiate future export contracts with buyers abroad. Small Savings The Congress today criticised the government’s decision to cut interest rates on small savings schemes, a move that was announced on March 31 as part of economic measures to counter COVID-19. The rate cut followed RBI’s decision to cut its policy rate by 75 basis points in a bid to counter the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus. The Public Provident Fund (PPF) will now fetch 7.1% returns, after an 80 basis point cut in its interest rate. Earlier the rate was 7.9%. The rate of interest on National Savings Certificate has been slashed from 7.9% to 6.8%, a reduction of 110 basis points. The interest rate on Kisan Vikas Patra has been cut by 70 bps to 6.9%. Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Wednesday described these cuts as a wrong step based on “stupid advice” and demanded their rollback. He said though India’s GDP for the last quarter could not be have been more than 4 per cent, it was time to focus on saving people’s lives and not the GDP. “I know that sometimes government acts on stupid advice, but I am amazed how stupid this advice was. While reducing the interest rate on PPF and small savings may be technically correct, it is absolutely the wrong time to do so,” he said on Twitter. Given that people, and especially the elderly and retired individuals, tend to rely on interest income during times of financial stress, there does seem to be merit in Chidambaram’s criticism. In Brief: A senior Saudi official urged the more than one million Muslims planning to perform the Hajj pilgrimage to defer their plans this year. He indicated that the pilgrimage to Mecca, scheduled for July 28 to August 2, could be cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In February, the kingdom had taken the extraordinary decision to close off the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, a step which wasn’t taken even during the 1918 flu epidemic that killed tens of millions worldwide. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. | 
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