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1 ! & quot ; # $ % % $ & ' ( )) & # ! % * + , - ( # ). ,)/-*China lost more than 40soldiers in the bloodybrawl with the Indian troops inthe Galwan valley, Ladakh inJune 2020. This figure high-lighted by an Australian news-paper is many times more thanthe official Chinese admissionof their casualties. The clash on June 15 wasthe bloodiest in the last 40 yearsor so. Twenty Indian personnel,including the commandingofficer, were killed. Intelligencereports from the ground indi-cated that nearly 50 Chinesealso died, but Beijing all alongrefrained from making publicthe number of casualties. Somemonths back, it said four of itssoldiers died in the report by a group ofsocial media researchers quot -ed by the Australian newspaper The Klaxon said China lost42 soldiers in the June 2020 Galwan Valley clash, at leastnine times more than the fourit has least 38 soldiers alonewere killed while attempting tocross the fast-flowing GalwanRiver in the early stages of theJune 15-16 clash, says thereport prepared after a year-long investigation.

2 The sol-diers were crossing the river insub-zero temperatures and the four soldiers Chinaconfirmed had died, only one- Junior Sergeant WangZhuoran- reportedly drowned,the investigative newspapersaid, citing the report titled Galwan Decoded .The report cited severalWeibo users and said, Atleast 38 PLA (People sLiberation Army) troops alongwith Wang were washed awayand drowned that only Wang was declaredamong the four officially deadsoldiers . Comrades in arms keptslipping and being rusheddownstream, the report said,adding, After the incident,the bodies of the soldiers werefirst taken to Shiquanhe MartyrCemetery, followed by localceremonies at the local townsof the killed soldiers. It quoted a Weibo user(Qiang) as claiming to haveserved in the area. The userclaimed that the Chinese armywas creating infrastructure inthe buffer zone, violating themutual agreement and hadbeen trying to expand itspatrolling limits within thebuffer zone since April 2020.

3 PLA did not adhere to instead of dis-mantling its own infrastructureas agreed upon, secretly dis-mantled the river crossingbridge constructed by theIndian army, said the went to extremelengths to silence discussionabout the battle and in par-ticular, any discussion aboutthe true number of Chinesecasualties .The Klaxon cites the reportas saying a division of theXinjiang Miltary Region orga-nized officers and soldiers to goto the Shiquane MartyrCemetary to lay flowers to therevolutionary martyrs, organizeparty members to take an oathand sweep the tombs forheroes .The investigation involved discussions with mainlandChinese bloggers, informationobtained from mainland-basedChinese citizens and mediareports that have since beendeleted by Chinese authorities . ). ,)/-*The Government onThursday, for the first time,said the pandemic situation hasimproved and there is a con-traction in the spread of peak of the thirdCovid-19 wave driven by thehighly transmissible coron-avirus variant Omicron isslightly lower than that of thesecond wave which proveddeadly to Covid cases crossedfour lakh when India reachedthe second wave s peak, HealthMinistry s Joint Secretary LavAgarwal told reporters here.

4 Incontrast, the country onThursday reported lakhfresh cases, half the casesrecorded on January 21, whichwas the peak, according to theGovernment. Cases have beenfalling since then. We are seeing a decline in(Covid) cases. We don t want touse words like wave and are still some areas wherecases are increasing. Covidmanagement strategies stillneed to be implementedbecause overall we are still see-ing a high number of cases, Agarwal said, on whether thethird wave peak has said a decline in theCovid fatality rate has beennoted with an increase in thevaccine doses. Daily Covidcases in the two weeks betweenJanuary 21 and February 3have fallen by 50 per centfrom 3,47,254 to 1,72, the same period,the positivity rate or the num-ber of infections per 100 testsfell by 39 per cent from cent to per cent,which shows a clear decline indaily positivity rate indicatingthe decreased spread of Covidinfection. ). ,)/-*The Supreme Court-appointed Pegasus probepanel on Thursday said onlytwo persons have submittedmobile phones and decided toextend the submission date upto February 8.

5 In an advertise-ment, the panel said personscan sit along with the techni-cal committee while copyingthe phone. This is the secondadvertisement by the Justice RVRaveendran committee. In response to it, only twopersons have produced theirmobile instruments for takingdigital images. Therefore, theTechnical Committee onceagain requests those who havereasonable cause to believetheir mobile instrument isinfected with Pegasus spywareto come forward and contactthe Technical Committee withreasons as to why they believethat their mobile instrumentmay have been infected withPegasus malware, on or beforeFebruary 8, 2022, by an emailto it said. ). ,)/-*Taking strong exception toChina s decision to honourits army officer involved in theGalwan valley clash with Indiain 2020, India on Thursdaydecided not to send its diplo-mats for the opening and clos-ing ceremony of the WinterOlympics in Beijing. TheChinese officer has beenappointed as the torchbearerfor the forthcoming as Qi Fabao, theofficer was reportedly injuredand captured by the Indianforces during the clash in which20 Indian personnel, includingthe commanding officer, werekilled on June 15, 2020.

6 TheChinese officer was capturedwhen he tried to mount anattack along with his troops onthe Indian forces in the GalwanValley. His photograph carry-ing the Olympic torch was putup by the State-owned mediaThe Global to the develop-ment, External AffairsMinistry SpokespersonArindam Bagchi described theChinese action of honouringthe commander as regret-table .India s charg d affaires inthe Beijing embassy will not beattending the opening or clos-ing ceremony of the Beijing2022 Winter Olympics, hesaid. However, India will par-ticipate in the Games with alone other countries,including the US, too havedecided not to send theirenvoys for the Games. Theirsportspersons, however, willrepresent their countries in themega , India hasdecided not to broadcast theopening and closing cere-monies of the WinterOlympics being held in Bharati CEO ShashiShekhar Vempati said onThursday DD Sports channelwill not telecast live the open-ing and closing ceremonies ofthe Winter Olympics beingheld in Beijing.

7 The openingceremony will be held onFebruary 4 (Friday), and theclosing ceremony on February20. The announcement cameshortly after the IndianGovernment decided that itsenvoy will not attend the open-ing or closing ceremony of the2022 Winter Olympics asChina has chosen a militarycommander involved in theGalwan Valley clashes as itstorchbearer for the mega sport-ing event. ). ,)/-*The Samyukta Kisan Morcha(SKM), a joint platform ofprotesting farmers unions, onThursday appealed to farmersin Uttar Pradesh to punish the BJP in the upcomingAssembly elections for betray-ing the farmers by not fulfill-ing their SKM will distributepamphlets to farmers/votersand will also hold rallies andmahapanchayat in nine citiesincluding Meerut, Kanpur andGorakhpur, in the run-up tothe Assembly polls in UP, notto vote for the BJP. They willalso use social media to spreadtheir appeal. The farmers leaders didthe same thing during theWest Bengal Assembly pollsand campaigned against theBJP last year.

8 ! & quot ; ! ). ,)/-*In the wake of growingdemand from various stake-holders and educationists, theCentre on Thursday said dis-tricts having less than five percent Covid positivity rate canmove in the direction ofreopening schools. But it is upto the State Governments totake a call in this regard. The Education Ministrysaid schools are though fullyopen in eleven States, partial-ly opened mainly for higherclasses in 16 States and con-tinue to remain closed in that the pandemicsituation has improved andthere has been a consistentdecline in new Covid-19 cases,Niti Ayog Member (Health) VK Paul said, We have moreconfidence now to go in thedirection of reopening schools. Noting that the nation isconcerned that there has beena significant learning loss, Paulsaid schools should be open atthe earliest opportunity butalso appropriate time .Many international organ-isations, including the WHOand the UNICEF, advised it isnot good to keep the schoolsclosed for so long as it is ham-pering the secondary educationsystem, he Union HealthMinistry, the EducationMinistry, and other stakehold-ers held several discussions inthis regard last week.

9 Sourcessaid they are framing a modelfor staggered opening ofschools for physical classes fol-lowing all Covid-19 relatedprotocols. The decision regarding thereopening of the schools forDelhi is likely to be taken by theDelhi Disaster ManagementAuthority (DDMA) on in the city were brieflyreopened before being closedagain on December 28 lastyear in view of the third waveof Covid-19 driven by theOmicron variant. #$ %! -' ,*$'%-The Punjab & Haryana HighCourt on Thursday grant-ed an interim stay on aHaryana Government s lawproviding 75 per cent reserva-tion in private sector jobs forresidents of the State. A benchof Justices Ajay Tewari andPankaj Jain passed the order ona petition filed by an industriesassociation from Faridabadand other associations fromHaryana. Haryana s AdditionalAdvocate General Jagbir SinghMalik said the State will be fil-ing a Special Leave Petition(SLP) against the order beforethe Supreme interim order hascome as a relief for companiesin the State which feel that theHaryana State Employment ofLocal Candidates Act, 2020would have a bearing on theirfuture business operationsand investment.

10 The Act pro-vides 75 per cent reservationin the private sector to jobseekers from the state andcame into force from January15. It applies to jobs offeringa maximum gross monthlysalary or wages of 30, 75 per cent reser-vation in private sector jobsfor State domicile in the pri-vate sector was a key pollpromise of the Jannayak JantaParty at the time of 2019assembly polls. After the polls,it formed a Government inalliance with the BJP after thesaffron party fell short ofattaining a simple majority onits the high courtgranted interim stay, DeputyChief Minister and JJP leaderDushyant Chautala tweeted.!& quot ; #$%& ' ! ( & quot ; ) 0 , 1 # 2 ! & quot ; # 2 2/ & quot ; #$% &&' & quot ;& quot ;3' )( ' 1 ,)/-* /4 + '/ 6-46' ) .'%%' -* %'*14% -' ,*$'%- ,)-%',4 -7,)%'6', 8*9'7.',' &( ) & * $+,- . / / -. 0 1 $ #$%&' (* ,*': )%8* ) ) 5%' *8* 7 /*1 4% -)% * 9' )$* + ,%4 *' 64*/,41 6*$$) * & quot ;; 7)'% < ' 5$ -%-$% .-5. 5 )1 /)'%5 -) *' =4'$>*%) !& quot ;!! ! & quot ; # $ % & ' & quot ; ( !