Daily News Dose: 5 Indian students killed in a road accident in Canada | Mar 14, 2022

Hello listener, this is your daily dose of news from Onmanorama. I'm your host, Vishnu, and these are the major news stories of the day:


1. 5 Indian students killed in a road accident in Canada
2. Kerala has 64,000 extremely poor families, reveals a survey. The number is highest in Malappuram district.
3. IMD warns of heatwave in Kerala
4. Kochi POCSO Case accused Saiju Thankachan surrenders before police
5. Bevco posts over 1,600 crore loss


Let’s get into the details.

1) 5 students from India were killed in a vehicle accident in Toronto, Canada, in the wee hours of Saturday. Two other students were injured in the accident, stated Ajay Bisaria, the High Commissioner of India. The deceased have been identified as Harpreet Singh, Jaspinder Singh, Karanpal Singh, Mohit Chouhan, and Pawan Kumar. All five were reportedly killed on the spot after the passenger van in which they were travelling rammed into a tractor trailer at around 3.45am between Trenton and Belleville.

2) Kerala has 64,006 extremely poor families, accounting for 0.64 per cent of the total population, a survey revealed. The door-to-door extreme poverty survey carried out by the Local Self-Government Department has found 1,735 families without facilities or unable to cook food despite the State government providing food kits and free ration. The State also has 1,622 families with bedridden members, suffering from cancer and other terminal diseases. This was the first survey conducted by an Indian state. The aim of the survey is to alleviate extreme poverty in Kerala. Enumerators looked at the vulnerable communities, such as SC/STs, coastal population, physically and mentally challenged, those unable to work, and families without their primary breadwinners (either dead or abandoned). Of the 64,006 extremely poor families, 43,850 have only single members. The survey also found 12,763 scheduled caste and 3,021 scheduled tribe families, and 2,737 coastal families living in extremely poor conditions. Malappuram district has the highest number of extremely poor families (8,553), followed by Thiruvananthapuram with 7,278.

3) The Indian Meteorological Department has warned that several districts in Kerala will experience heatwaves in the coming days. Temperatures in Kollam, Kottayam, Alappuzha, Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kannur districts may rise by at least 2 degrees this week, and may go past the 40 degree mark. A 33% drop in rainfall compared to the average rainfall and dry north easterly winds are the reasons for the likely rise in temperature, said K Santhosh, IMD Director, Thiruvananthapuram.


4) Saiju Thankachan, the second accused in a POCSO case linked to the Number 18 Hotel in Fort Kochi, surrendered before the police on Monday. The High Court had earlier rejected Saiju's anticipatory bail plea in the case. Roy J Vayalat, owner of the hotel and the prime accused in the case, surrendered before the police on Sunday.

5) The Kerala State Beverages Corporation, popularly known as Bevco, has posted a loss of Rs 1608.17 crore in revenue during 2020-21, according to the Bureau of Public Enterprises . Bevco, one of the major revenue sources of the state government, had ranked second in terms of profit during the pre-covid period, but the slide in its revenue pulled it down to the third slot in the list of loss-making public sector undertakings in Kerala. The report attributed the loss of revenue to Covid-19, which forced Bevco to close many of its outlets.

Now, let’s check out the covid update

6) India on Monday saw a further dip in daily Covid-19 cases as 2,503 new cases pushed the overall tally to 4,29,93,494, while the active cases dipped to 36,168.
The death toll climbed to 5,15,877 with 27 more fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry.
Both the daily and weekly positivity rate was recorded at 0.47 per cent.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Be sure to come back tomorrow. As always, thanks for listening to Daily News Dose.