BHUBANESWAR l sunday l novembER 20, 2022 l `12.00 l PAGES 24 l JEYPORE EDITION Activist Gautam Navlakha walks out of Taloja Central Prison | PTI P7 CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Deal in sight on loss & damage fund Broad across-the-board agreement awaits ratification as COP27 goes into overtime to clinch pact E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi The COP27 summit in Egypt that went into overtime, on Saturday appeared poised for a deal over creating a fund for compensating poor nations who are victims of climate change worsened by rich nations’ carbon footprint. The agreement would need the approval of about 200 countries taking part at the Shar m-elSheikh summit. It would amount to a partial breakthrough as states remained locked over other contentious issues. Reports suggested that the draft was amended to include the European Union’s position that only the particularly vulnerable countries be eligible to tap the fund, not the ones with high oil revenues but classified as developing nations. The indication was to exclude the Gulf nations as beneficiaries. The potential loss and damage deal is part of the overall agreement that is still in a flux. “30 years of patience. The day has arrived. It is done. YES a new Fund for responding Loss and Damage in developing coun- tries….This is a unique moment a win for all citizens of the world,” Alpha Kaloga, lead negotiator for the Africa Group tweeted. Reports said that in an attempt to narrow the gap between countries’ climate change pledges and the targeted reductions needed to avert the adverse impacts of climate change, the draft text urges that states who are yet to upgrade their 2030 emissions, cut targets by 2023-end. The draft, however, did not contain a reference that India and Odisha govt withdraws Covid regulations E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar The Future of Food WITH THIS ISSUE PLUS 12 PAGES Shock and awe: Elephants in the killing fields of odisha In October 2018, a big herd of elephants walked past Kamalanga village. Some members of the group came in contact with a high voltage live wire | P2 THE state government on Saturday repealed the Covid regulations that made wearing of face masks and practising Covid appropriate behaviour mandatory and imposed restrictions and penalties on gatherings. The government’s decision to repeal ‘The Odisha Covid-19 Regulations, 2020’ came following substantial decline in Covid cases in the state over the last several months. There has been a drastic decline in cases and hospitalisations after the fourth wave in July. The Health and Family Welfare department has, however, advised people to practice Covid appropriate behaviour voluntarily as and when necessary. Health secretary Shalini Pandit said several states have al- ready repealed the regulations after the Covid cases declined significantly. “The detection of new cases in Odisha has gone down and so also hospitalisations. But people with symptoms should practice Covid app r o p r i a t e b e h av i o u r f o r t h e m s e l ve s a n d o t h e r s around them,” she advised. The state gover nment had issued ‘The Odisha Covid-19 Regulations, 2020’ on March 18, the same year. These regulations were amended time to time during the pandemic. With only two cases, the state government had enforced statewide lockdown on March 24, 2020. Before enforcing it, the government had taken several measures for preventing the spread of Covid-19 besides declaring it as a state disaster on March 13. The statewide lockdown was followed by a nationwide lockdown between March 25 and April 14. Before the extension announced by the Centre, Odisha had extended the lockdown in the state till April 30 that year. On April 3, 2020, the government amended the Covid regulations by adding additional duties and responsibilities of hospitals and local bodies such as infection control measures in hospitals and empowering officers to declare any government or private hospital as Covid hospitals. The state recorded four new Covid cases in last 24 hours taking the tally to 13.36 lakh. While 13.27 lakh people have recovered so far, 9,204 people have succumbed to the disease. The active cases now stands at 86. some other negotiators had earlier requested on phasing down use of “all fossil fuels”, with the text referring to only phasing down of coal, which had been agreed to in last year’s summit. The European Union is pushing for strong wording on the 1.50C target cap for global warming in the overall deal. “We need to get a deal on 1.50C. We also need strong wording on mitigation and that’s what we’re going to push,” said Ireland’s Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan, who is also the European lead negotiator on loss and damage. the beautiful game Infantino burst ahead of big kick-off S i d d h a n t h Ane y @ Doha In the parking lot of Doha’s international airport I found myself sucked into a conversation between four friends. They were discussing congestion rules put in place to ease some of the traffic issues that may come up over the course of the next month as over a million football fans descend on the first nation in the MENA region to host a FIFA World Cup. An Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Qatari and an Indian, each had their own understanding of who could drive when and where. “Welcome to Qatar,” one of them told me with a smirk, before adding, “Where no one knows what’s going on, and everybody is happy .” Everybody, that is, except FIFA boss Gianni Infantino. In FIFA chief Gianni Infantino | afp an extraordinary monologue that went on for almost an hour Infantino hit out at the hypocrisy of the West. “I’m European,” he said. “I think for what we Europeans have been doing for 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologising for the next 3,000 years before starting to give moral lessons to people.” It was a clear message to the mostly white-cis-male columnists who have this year developed a remarkable expertise in the conditions of work and life (and death) of the migrant workers, a vast majority of them from South and Sousteast Asia, who have built this city and the world’s grandest stage. “Today I have strong feelings. Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay Today I feel disa. bled. Today I feel a migrant worker,” he said. “I feel this, all this, because what I’ve been seeing and what I’ve been told, since I don’t read, otherwise I would be depressed, I think.” On Sunday hosts Qatar and Ecuador play the first game of the tournament and focus will shift to the football, like Infantino wants. But the conversations, and the movements, that have been sparked will continMore on Page 11 ue…