Daily News Dose: Pakistan president dissolves National Assembly | Apr 3, 2022

Hello, this is your daily dose of news from Onmanorama. I'm Ajish Jimmy George, and these are the major news stories of the day:

1. Pakistan President dissolves National Assembly, PM Imran Khan gets a breather

2. No power cut, assures KSEB after fire guts Sabarigiri generator

3. Maoists extend support to anti-SilverLine protests, posters appear in Kerala's Kozhikode

4. Petrol price rises to Rs 113 in Kochi

5. Amazon gets its first union, Jeff Bezos miffed

Let’s get into the details.

1. Pakistan President Arif Alvi on Sunday dissolved the National Assembly on the advice of Prime Minister Imran Khan, minutes after the embattled leader of the ruling party advised him to call for fresh elections.

Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib said President Alvi has dissolved the National Assembly as per the advice of the prime minister. He said the election will be held within 90 days.

Earlier in the day, Imran Khan survived a move to oust him as Pakistan's prime minister, getting a reprieve when the deputy speaker of parliament blocked a no-confidence motion as unconstitutional.

The opposition immediately vowed to challenge the block on the vote, made by a member of the premier's political party, while Khan advised the country's president to dissolve parliament and called on the nation to prepare for fresh elections.

2. A fire hazard at the Sabarigiri Power Station may result in reduced power production within Kerala. However, the Kerala State Electricity Board is confident of tiding over the shortage without resorting to power cuts. Some coils of the Generator 6 at the power station located at Moozhiyar in Pathanamthitta district were gutted in a fire on Friday evening. The Kerala State Electricity Board has shut down the generator, causing a substantial dip in the internal power generation.

A shortage of 96 megawatt of power is expected with the shutdown of the generator.

3. Maoists in Kerala have reportedly extended support to the anti-SilverLine protests being carried out by the affected people, backed by opposition political parties and activists.

Posters and leaflets, purportedly issued by the banned CPI (Maoist), appeared in Kozhikode district on Sunday.

The campaign materials were found at Mattikkunnu near Thamarassery. The handwritten posters call for protests against the SilverLine semi high-speed rail project and described Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan 'Kerala Hitler' and Prime Minister Narendra Modi 'Indian Hitler'.

4. Fuel prices are getting dearer almost daily. Petrol price rose to Rs113.02 in Kochi on Sunday after a spike of 87 paise per litre. Diesel price increased to Rs 99.98 with a rise of 85 paise.

Petrol costs Rs 115.01 and diesel Rs 101.83 in Thiruvananthapuram. It is Rs 113.2 and Rs 100.18 respectively in Kozhikode.

In the last 10 days, price of petrol has increased by Rs 8.71 and diesel by Rs 8.42. The latest hike has been the 11th since March 22, which was preceded by a a four-and-half-month period when the rates were not revised apparently due to assembly polls in five states.

5. In a deeply troubling move to Amazon's Jeff Bezos, workers at his warehouse in New York City have voted to unionise. It is a historic first.

The US National Labor Relations Board determined in January that unionisation efforts at the Amazon facility of 5,000 had "reached a sufficient showing of interest" to hold an election.

Bezos-owned Amazon said it was "disappointed with the outcome of the election because we believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees."

The company is evaluating its options, a post said, "including filing objections based on the inappropriate and undue influence by the NLRB" that it claims it witnessed. It didn't specify what "influence" it was referring to.

Now, let’s check out the covid update:

6) With 1,096 new coronavirus infections being reported in a day, India's total tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 4,30,28,131, while the active cases dipped to 13,013.

The death toll climbed to 5,21,345 with 81 fresh fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.24 per cent and the weekly positivity rate at 0.23 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.