Around 743, staff members, including priests of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) have tested Covid-19 positive since the temple reopened, reported The New Indian Express (TNIE). Out of this, around 402 staffers are said to have recovered and resumed duties, while the remaining 338 staff are undergoing treatment at various Covid-19 hospitals and quarantine facilities in the city.

The temple reopened in July, and recorded footfalls of around 2.38 lakh devotees who visited from across the country to worship at the temple in that month itself. However, even as at least 743 employees of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams tested Covid-19 positive, there was hardly a news media frenzy, and the matter did not make the nightly TV discourse.

Thankfully, the media did not call it a ‘hotspot’ or blame the visitors and the priest, or even the temple management for this massive spread of the infection. Those infected, including some priests of the Lord Venkateswara shrine, reported TNIE. The temple has had a surge of devotees following the relaxation in coronavirus-induced lockdown in the state.

It is an interesting contrast to the way the media, politicians, police, governments had reaction when  news reports of Covid-19 cases emerged after the March 10 event at the Markaz Nizamuddin mosque in Delhi. News portals ran special bulletins, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also shared special lists of those testing positive after visiting the meeting, a police case was registered and what followed is a part of the city’s communal history. That event was held, 14 days before the unplanned nationwide lockdown was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24. Some cases related to the Jamaat event are still sub-judice. However the Communal forces used the Covid-19 hotspot to fuell hate and target minorities across the country.

The Supreme Court, on May 27, had asked the Centre to submit a response in three combined petitions which seek strict action against the media for communalisation of the Tablighi Jamaat meeting in Delhi. CJI Bobde, stated, “Don’t let people instigate law and order issues, there are the things that later become law and order issues,” while addressing the Centre and seeking a response from it.

The petition filed by Jamiat-ulema-I-Hind stated that the “unfortunate incident of the Tablighi Jamaat was being used to demonise and blame the entire Muslim community”, it also pointed towards the dangerously communal terms coined and used by the news media as well as social media such as ‘corona jihad’, ‘corona terrorism’, ‘islamic Insurrection’, ‘corona bombs’.

Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) had also called out the blatant communalisation of the pandemic. CJP has sent written complaints to news channels like India TV and India Today which had made false claims relating to Tablighi Jamaat and its connection with Covid-19 as well as for sensationalizing and communalising news reportage of the pandemic. At that time,  TV news media indulged in creating “anti-Muslim narratives that viewers develop animosity towards their fellow members of society and even people who have lived in harmony, start discriminating against families belonging to Muslim communities.”

Interestingly, in July, when the temple town of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district was under a complete Covid-19 lockdown, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams had continued to allow pilgrims to go up the Tirumala hills to have see the and pray to Lord Venkateshwara. According to a report in The Hindustan Times, District collector Bharat Gupta said reporters that the “entire temple town of Tirupati had been declared as a containment zone for Covid-19 and a complete lockdown would be in force from Tuesday till August 5.”

This, he said, was done “in the wake of the intensity of Covid-19 in Tirupati,” where all 50 wards under Tirupati municipal corporation were affected, and some wards reported “more than 40 positive cases for Covid-19.” It was also reported that three staffers had died due to Covid-19 also.

The TNIE reported that the TTD Executive Officer Anil Kumar Singhal, has said that, “Only three employees succumbed to the virus and we are giving best possible arrangements and treatment to all our employees in the COVID centres,” adding that devotees have “expressed immense satisfaction over the arrangements of darshan, accommodation, Kalyana Katta, laddu, annaprasadam” and other facilities at by TTD. According to Singhal, “cases have not increased in Tirupati alone, but the entire state as well the country is facing a similar problem.” 

“On August 8, about 8500-odd pilgrims had darshan against the quota of 9000 tickets”, he added. Media reports state that in July, it had been suggested that the ‘darshan’  be discontinued in the interest of public health. However, that month around 2.38 lakh devotees from across the country worshipped at the temple in July. It had reopened to pilgrims on June 8 and initially allowed 6,000 visitors per day, with Covid-19 protocol in place. However the number soon increased.

Most of this information came to light at a media interaction during the `Dial Your TTD EO’ program that was widely covered by journalists, and media porters covering South India. According to a report in Hans India, the TTD Executive Officer Anil Kumar Singhal “made it clear that the management will not hesitate to take action on any employee found indulging in other religious propagation or practicing it.” 

The  government of Andhra Pradesh has also recently extended his  deputation as TTD executive officer until further orders. This reports Hans India, is his second extension under the current government as executive officer of TTD, the biggest Hindu religious institution administering Tirumala Sri Venkateswara temple. Singhal was appointed as TTD EO in 2017 during the TDP regime and got extension after the completion of the two year deputation period in 2019 after YSRCP came to power. 

The TTD had recorded an income of Rs 20.66 crore through Hundi offerings in July, cash offering of Rs 16.69 crore made by visitors and online offering of  Rs 3.92 crore.

Related:

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Setting an example: Muslim devotee donates sprayer for Tirupati temple
Will the Jagannath Rath Yatra be held this year?
820 ASI monuments including of places of worship set to reopen today
Foreign attendees of Tablighi Jamaat Markaz pay small fine, may go home soon
Don’t let people instigate law and order issues: SC on communalisation of Covid-19
Tablighi Jamaat members still under the scanner

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If the Dutch satellite-based data had identified Sonbhadra-Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, Korba in Chhattisgarh, Talcher in Odisha, Chandrapur in Maharashtra, Mundra in Gujarat and Durgapur in West Bengal as India’s NOx hotspots, the new Greenpeace study says, thanks to coal burning, India is the largest emitter of SO2 in the world, contributing more than 15% of global anthropogenic SO2 emissions from NASA detected hotspots.”

Causing environmental pollution and pollutants originating from human activity, anthropogenic SO2 is mainly produced from coal combustion, as also from oil and gas refining/ power generation and smelters. It is known to be impacting human health, ecosystems, agriculture, and global and regional climate.

India’s top 13 coal-fired anthropogenic SO2 hotspots identified out of the world’s 40 are Singrauli (Madhya Pradesh), producing 507 kilotons per year (kt/yr), followed by Neyveli (Tamil Nadu) 393 kt/yr, Talcher (Odisha) 347 kt/yr, Jharsuguda (Odisha) 301 kt/yr, Korba (Chhatisgarh) 280 kt/yr, Kutch (Gujarat) 228 kt/yr, Chennai (Tamil Nadu) 215 kt/yr, Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) 171 kt/yr, Ramagundam (Telangana) 157 kt/yr, Raigarh (Maharashtra) 154 kt/yr, Mundra (Gujarat) 148 kt/yr, Chandrapur (Maharashtra) 132 kt/yr, and Koradi (Maharashtra) 114 kt/yr.

Titled “Global SO2 emission hotspot database: Ranking the world’s worst sources of SO2 pollution” by NGO researchers Sunil Dahiya and Lauri Myllyvirta, the study states, “More than 51% of total anthropogenic SO2 emissions are emitted in regions of high coal consumption for power generation and industries. Coal combustion for power generation is the major emission source, with smaller contributions from oil refineries/consumption, smelters and others.” 
 

Shockingly, the study says, India is one of the three countries – the other two being Saudi Arabia and Iran – whose “air pollutant emissions from power plants and other industries continue to increase”. Then, there are Russia, South Africa, Mexico and Turkey, whose emissions are “currently not increasing but there is not a lot of progress in tackling them either.” 
 

Commenting on India, the study states, “The primary reason for India’s high emission output is the expansion of coal-based electricity generation over the past decade. The vast majority of plants in India lack flue-gas desulfurization technology to reduce their air pollution.” 
 

The study continues, “Singrauli, Neyveli, Talcher, Jharsuguda, Korba, Kutch, Chennai, Ramagundam, Chandrapur and Koradi thermal power plants or clusters are the major emission hotspots in the country”, adding, “In India, there has been an increase of SO2 emissions at already existing hotspots as well as the emergence of new sites generating emissions across the country.” 
 

Trends in anthropogenic SO2 emissions by country since 2005

Criticizing the Government of India’s failure to control SO2 emission, the study underlines, “In a first step to combat the pollution levels, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change introduced, for the first time, SO2 emission limits for coal-fired power plants in December 2015, but the deadline for the installation of flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) in power plants has been shifted from 2017 to 2022.”

In all, the study says, NASA satellite data captured more than 500 major point sources of SO2 emissions across the globe, including natural sources such as volcanoes. “Excluding all natural sources from our analysis and only investigating anthropogenic sources of SO2, we found a close correlation of high SO2 emission levels within regions that have high fossil fuel consumption i.e., geographies with high coal burning, oil refining and combustion as well as smelters.”

“Sixty percent of the total emissions detected by the satellite are anthropogenic. Regions with high capacity of coal combustion for power generation and industries, smelters, oil and gas refining/combustion contributed 31%, 10% and 19% respectively”, it adds.

Courtesy: Counter View

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