Thailand’s parliament voted Thursday to delay deciding on whether it will amend the country’s constitution, and anti-government protesters continued the daily demonstrations they have been staging for more than two months, calling for more democracy and reform of the monarchy.Rather than vote on the amendment, lawmakers dominated by government supporters opted to set up a committee that will study various plans to amend the charter written by a military-appointed panel after a 2014 coup. Critics of the current government say the constitution was drafted to ensure the country’s current prime minister remained in power after the election last year.The decision is expected to delay the process by another month, agitating the thousands of protesters who gathered outside the parliament to put pressure on lawmakers to implement constitutional change and remove Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha, a former junta leader, from office.Parliament member Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn from the opposition party said in a tweet that as a result of the delay to form a committee, if the motion to amend the constitution is rejected in a month’s time, then members of parliament will not be able to propose another motion until next year.“It’s part of their tactics to delay the process because they want to hold on to their power,” said Punchada Sirivunnabood, an associate professor of politics at Mahidol University near Bangkok. “The protest movement will likely escalate from this point, with more people, including the opposition parties, joining the movement.”Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn has not publicly commented on the protests that have demanded the monarchy’s power be reduced — a movement that challenges a decadeslong taboo of not criticizing the monarchy.Prayuth has called for patience on the amendment, saying the country must be peaceful in order for the government to be able to “continue our work, especially on the economy.”
…

The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday that 870,000 workers filed for unemployment compensation last week, a slight increase from the week before and another sign that the coronavirus pandemic is continuing to impede the American economic recovery.Millions of workers remain unemployed in the United States, with the jobless rate at 8.6% in mid-September, and economists saying the figure could remain elevated for months. Only about half of the 22 million U.S. jobs lost in the coronavirus pandemic has been recovered, with the world’s biggest economy adding 1.4 million jobs in August.Weekly initial claims for jobless benefits seemed to have stabilized somewhat below 900,000 in recent weeks. Last week’s 870,000 figure was up 4,000 from the revised level of the week before.The recent weekly claims figures are well below the 6.9 million record number of claims filed in late March as the coronavirus swept into the United States but remain above the highest level before this year in records going back to the 1960s.U.S. employers have called back millions of workers who were laid off during mandatory business shutdowns earlier this year, yet some hard-hit businesses have been slow to ramp up their operations again or closed permanently, leaving workers idled or searching for new employment.During the worst of the pandemic, the U.S. unemployment rate topped out at 14.7% in April.With six weeks to go before the November 3 presidential and congressional elections, President Donald Trump and Republican and Democratic lawmakers in politically fractious Washington have been unable to reach an agreement on extending federal unemployment benefits and how much should be paid.Until the end of July, the national government sent an extra $600 a week to unemployed workers on top of less generous state jobless benefits. The Republican-controlled Senate two weeks ago tried to win approval of $300-a-week payments through the end of the year, but Democrats blocked the proposal as too small and continued to call for resumption of the $600 weekly payments.The rejected Republican coronavirus relief package would have cost between $500 billion and $700 billion, on top of the $3 trillion approved months ago at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.Trump has urged his Republican colleagues in Congress to approve more spending in another coronavirus aid deal. A week ago, he said on Twitter, “Go for the much higher numbers, Republicans, it all comes back to the USA anyway (one way or another!).”The top two congressional Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, praised Trump’s stance.“We look forward to hearing from the president’s negotiators that they will finally meet us halfway with a bill that is equal to the massive health and economic crises gripping our nation,” Pelosi and Schumer said.But no deal has been reached as the country’s world-leading coronavirus death toll topped 200,000 this week.Democrats have called for a $2.2 trillion relief package, but possibly could settle for less than that. Whatever figure, if any, is agreed on is likely to come soon. Lawmakers want to leave Washington to return to their home states for a month of campaigning for re-election ahead of the elections.As the first round of unemployment payments expired in July, Trump signed an executive order calling for $400 a week in extra payments for a few weeks. But not all states delivered the reduced payments to jobless workers, and now that money is running out.While the U.S. has been adding more jobs in recent months, the pace of the recovery has seemed to slow. The 1.4 million jobs added in August included the Census Bureau’s temporary hiring of about 240,000 workers to help conduct the once-a-decade count of the U.S. population. 
…

The U.N. World Food Program warns northern Mozambique’s volatile Cabo Delgado province is facing a hunger crisis as escalating conflict forces thousands to flee their homes and abandon farms.An armed insurgency in Mozambique’s oil-rich northern province of Cabo Delgado has displaced more than 300,000 people since 2017. As fighting has intensified in recent months, thousands have fled to neighboring Tanzania, raising fears of a regionalization of the conflict.Most of the displaced have no means to feed themselves, and WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri says many are totally dependent on international food aid for survival.“We know that Cabo Delgado is a farming area,” said Phiri. “This is a region that produces both crops for commercial as well as for the subsistence of the farmers there. And, we know that when there is violence and if the farmer is not guaranteed to be there to harvest, they hardly put any seeds into the ground.”  The WFP plans to send food aid to reach 310,000 people in Cabo Delgado, Nampula, and Niassa. But it notes insecurity, poor infrastructure and restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and lack of money are threatening the operation.Phiri says the agency urgently requires $4.7 million a month to assist the internally displaced. He tells VOA the WFP will be forced to cut back on rations as early as December, if it doesn’t receive the needed funds. This, he adds will have serious consequences.“When you cut rations, the adults, particularly the mothers in the family—they start skipping meals,” said Phiri. “They start reducing the meal portions in order to stretch whatever resources are available for the children to have something…We are also concerned because Cabo Delgado has very high malnutrition rates.”Cabo Delgado has the second highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the country with more than half of children under age five chronically malnourished.  The U.N. agency has enough money in its coffers to feed the internally displaced over the next couple of months. The WFP, however, warns it may be forced to suspend its life-saving operation if the funding shortage persists beyond the end of the year.
…

Australian bank Westpac has agreed to pay a record fine for the nation’s biggest breach of anti-money laundering laws. The case was brought by the government’s Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center, known as AUSTRAC. It said the penalty of more than $900 million sent a strong message to the financial industry to take compliance seriously. Westpac was accused by government investigators of 23 million breaches of money laundering and counterterrorism financing laws. Australia’s second-largest bank was found to have allowed transactions that were potentially linked to child exploitation in the Philippines and in other countries despite being specifically warned of the risks. If approved by the federal court, the $920 million fine will be easily the biggest in Australian corporate history.   The bank had set aside $630 million to pay the penalty, but that figure was rejected as insufficient by the financial crimes watchdog. AUSTRAC investigators said the bank’s noncompliance was “serious and systemic.” Australian Attorney General Christian Porter said he believes the agreed-to settlement, which he described using the Australian dollar amount, is fair. “My very strong view, and the government’s strident view was that the early appropriations that Westpac made, and the figures that were being put early in negotiations with AUSTRAC were totally inadequate, and that this 1.3 billion [Australian] dollar amount more properly reflects both the seriousness of the offending that Westpac had engaged in, but also an acceptance of the fact that these represent some of the greatest failures of a corporate entity in Australia’s history to abide by Australian law,” Porter said.Westpac has apologized for its “failings.” Chief executive Peter King said the bank was “committed to fixing the issues to ensure that these mistakes do not happen again.” The bank’s former chief executive and chairman left their positions last year over the scandal.   Opposition politicians are demanding the government push ahead with reforms to further strengthen Australia’s anti-money laundering legislation. Last year Australia’s banking industry was scrutinized by a royal commission – the highest form of public inquiry – that exposed widespread dishonesty in the sector. 
…

U.S. pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson has begun late-stage human trials of a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine in the United States. Dr. Paul Stoffels, Johnson & Johnson’s chief scientific officer, told reporters Wednesday that 60,000 participants have begun receiving the vaccine across 215 locations in the United States, as well as internationally in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and South Africa. Dr. Stoffels said Johnson & Johnson moved into the late-stage trial after seeing positive results from its combined Phase 1 and 2 trials in the U.S. and Belgium.   The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the fourth potential coronavirus vaccine undergoing large-scale Phase 3 testing in the United States, joining Moderna, AstraZeneca and a joint effort by Pfizer and German-based BioNTech. All four efforts are being developed under the Trump administration’s President Donald Trump walks past a U.S. map of reported coronavirus cases as he departs following a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) news briefing at the White House in Washington, July 23, 2020.Speaking to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Dr. Stephen Hahn said those decisions will be made by career FDA scientists following the agency’s “rigorous expectations for safety and effectiveness.”  The FDA and other federal scientific and regulatory agencies have seen their credibility diminished by constant administration efforts to revise their reports and guidelines to maintain Trump’s views about the nature of the pandemic.  The United States is leading the world in both the number of total COVID-19 cases with over 6.9 million, and fatalities, at almost 202,000.  The United States and many other nations are experiencing a surge of new coronavirus cases, prompting many to reimpose a set of strict lockdowns first ordered at the outset of the pandemic.   Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday in a televised address that the nation’s four largest provinces have entered a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.   “We’re on the brink of a Fall that could be much worse than the Spring,” Prime Minister Trudeau warned.  Canada has seen an average of 1,123 new cases daily over the past week, compared with an average of 380 new cases a day in mid-August.   In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Thursday that the country is returning to a full lockdown effective Friday, and lasting for two weeks as its infection rate spirals out of control.  Schools, entertainment venues and most businesses will be closed, while restaurants will be limited to delivering food.  Residents will be required to stay within 500-1,000 meters of their homes, except for work and shopping for food and medicine, while outdoor gatherings will be strictly limited to 20 people.  
…

A grand jury in the U.S. city of Louisville, Kentucky, Wednesday charged a former police officer with wanton endangerment for shooting into the apartment of the neighbors of a Black woman, Breonna Taylor, who was killed during a bungled drug raid in March. The grand jury decided that two other officers were justified in firing their weapons and cleared them of wrongdoing. No officers were charged directly with Taylor’s death. All three officers involved are white. Taylor family attorney Ben Crump said, “While not fully what we wanted, this brings us closer” to justice for Taylor. But in a second tweet, Crump said the fact that no one was charged directly with Taylor’s death was “outrageous and offensive.” Initially, thousands of people peacefully protested the decision in the city of 600,000. But the protests turned violent Wednesday night, with police and protesters clashing, and protesters setting fires in downtown Louisville, according to local media.  Late Wednesday, two Louisville police officers were shot and suffered non-life-threatening wounds, a Louisville Metro Police Department spokesman said. The spokesman added that police had “one suspect in custody.” Around 5 p.m. local time, Louisville police had declared the protest a riot and ordered protesters to “immediately disperse.” Officers employed flash bang devices to clear protesters from a downtown area later Wednesday.  Mayor Greg Fischer ordered a 72-hour curfew, beginning at 9 p.m. Wednesday. Much of the city’s downtown area had been closed to traffic. The Louisville Courier Journal reported that nearly 30 protesters had been arrested late Wednesday. Brett Hankison, who is white, and the lone officer charged in the case, had already been fired from the city police department after an investigation showed he fired 10 shots into Taylor’s apartment through a sliding glass door covered with blinds, violating police rules that officers should have a clear line of sight before firing their weapons.Police survey an area after a police officer was shot, Sept. 23, 2020, in Louisville, Ky. A grand jury has indicted one officer on criminal charges six months after Breonna Taylor was fatally shot by police in Kentucky.The grand jury charged Hankison with three counts of wanton endangerment, concluding the shots he fired went through a wall into a neighboring apartment and endangered three people living there. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison on each count. According to Kentucky’s statute, “A person is guilty of wanton endangerment in the first degree when, under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, he wantonly engages in conduct which creates a substantial danger of death or serious physical injury to another person.” Hankison was booked and released from the Shelby County Detention Center Wednesday afternoon after posting $15,000 bail, according to media reports. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is Black and oversaw the grand jury’s consideration of the case, said the other two officers involved in the raid — Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove — “were justified in their use of force” after Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired at them first when they entered the apartment, thinking they were intruders. The officers had authorization for a “no-knock” raid, but Cameron said a resident in Taylor’s apartment building heard the police officers announce their presence before entering Taylor’s apartment, even though Walker told police he did not hear it. Cameron said Walker acknowledged firing the first shot, hitting Mattingly in the leg. Mattingly and Cosgrove fired numerous shots in return. Cameron said ballistics tests showed one of the shots fired by Cosgrove killed 26-year-old Taylor, a medical technician. 
 
“The decision before my office is not to decide if the loss of Breonna Taylor’s life was a tragedy — the answer to that question is unequivocally yes,” Cameron said during a news conference Wednesday in Frankfurt, the state capital. “I understand that as a Black man, how painful this is … which is why it was so incredibly important to make sure that we did everything we possibly could to uncover every fact.” He later added, “I know that not everyone will be satisfied. Our job is to present the facts to the grand jury, and the grand jury then applies the facts. If we simply act on outrage, there is no justice. Mob justice is not justice. Justice sought by violence is not justice. It just becomes revenge.” Later, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear asked Cameron to post online all the evidence and facts that can be released without affecting the three felony counts brought against the fired Louisville police officer. “Everyone can and should be informed,” Beshear, a former attorney general, said during a press conference Wednesday. “And those that are currently feeling frustration, feeling hurt, they deserve to know more. I trust Kentuckians. They deserve to see the facts for themselves. And I believe that the ability to process those facts helps everybody.” Taylor’s killing became part of this summer’s national reckoning on race relations in the United States and police use of disproportionate force in minority communities. Street demonstrations broke out in dozens of cities in May after George Floyd, a Black man, died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Taylor case became as prominent as Floyd’s, with celebrities and protesters alike calling for charges to be filed against all three police officers linked to her death. Protests over the charges in Taylor’s case took place around the country Wednesday night, including in Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. Protesters said the charges against a single officer were not sufficient. Pastor Tim Findley, a regular at the protests held in Louisville seeking justice for Taylor, told the Courier Journal Wednesday, “It’s a tragedy. This is an embarrassment, and it’s exactly why there have been protests for the last (119) days. This is a disappointing, hurtful, painful day in our city.”  Louisville recently agreed to pay $12 million to Taylor’s family to settle a lawsuit it brought against the city for the manner in which the raid was carried out.  
…

U.S. President Donald Trump has declined to confirm he is willing to agree to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses his November 3 bid for re-election to Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden.  “We’re going to have to see what happens,” said the president in response to a reporter’s question during a White House news conference on Wednesday evening. “I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster.”  Trump, without evidence, has repeatedly predicted massive fraud with tens of millions of mail-in ballots, which Democrats have encouraged amid the coronavirus pandemic.   “We want to have — get rid of the ballots,” continued the president, explaining if that happens “there won’t be a transfer, frankly; there’ll be a continuation.”  
  
Biden, after his campaign plane landed in Delaware on Wednesday evening, was asked to respond to Trump’s remarks.  “What country are we in? I’m being facetious,” said the former vice president. “I said what country are we in? Look, he says the most irrational things. I don’t know what to say.”At least one of Trump’s fellow Republicans in the U.S. Senate, expressed alarm about the president’s remark.  “Fundamental to democracy is the peaceful transition of power; without that, there is Belarus,” said Senator Mitt Romney of Utah on Twitter. “Any suggestion that a president might not respect this Constitutional guarantee is both unthinkable and unacceptable.”Fundamental to democracy is the peaceful transition of power; without that, there is Belarus. Any suggestion that a president might not respect this Constitutional guarantee is both unthinkable and unacceptable.— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) September 24, 2020Romney was his party’s nominee for president in 2012 and has been one of the few Republicans in the Senate to occasionally take issue with Trump’s rhetoric and actions. “There is no question that he means exactly what he said,” Congressman Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on MSNBC about the president’s comment, adding that it was time for those serving in the Trump administration “to resign” in protest.  One of the country’s oldest constitutional rights groups also weighed in.  “The peaceful transfer of power is essential to a functioning democracy. This statement from the president of the United States should trouble every American,” said David Cole, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.  Earlier Wednesday, Trump said he thinks the November election “will end up in the Supreme Court and I think it’s very important that we have nine justices.” The president plans to announce his Supreme Court nominee on Saturday to fill the seat of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died this past Friday.  If the Senate confirms the president’s nominee before the election that would give the conservative wing a 6-3 majority on the court. “This scam that the Democrats are pulling, it’s a scam, the scam will be before the United States Supreme Court, and I think having a 4-4 situation is not a good situation,” said Trump. The president has repeatedly expressed concern about plans by a number of states, including California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington, to automatically dispatch mail-in ballots to all state residents for the election. Benjamin Ginsberg, a top election lawyer who has represented four Republican presidential candidates, has been quoted this month saying Trump’s prediction of fraud with such ballots lacks evidence.  “The president’s words make his and the Republican Party’s rhetoric look less like sincere concern — and more like transactional hypocrisy designed to provide an electoral advantage,” Ginsberg wrote in a Washington Post opinion article. “And they come as Republicans trying to make their cases in courts must deal with the basic truth that four decades of dedicated investigation have produced only isolated incidents of election fraud.”  
…

Fans disappointed once by the delayed release of superhero movie Black Widow are now disappointed twice after The Walt Disney Co. again pushed back the opening on Wednesday.Starring Scarlett Johansson, the spy thriller was scheduled to debut on November 6 and was among the last movies expected to open in 2020. But as movie theaters remain closed in many areas because of the pandemic, fans will now have to wait until May 7, 2021, according to Disney.Fans who were anticipating the latest annual Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster had mixed reactions to the Black Widow delay.’Money hungry’Some, like Twitter user @KpHeaney, applauded the move, tweeting that “this is the right decision” because “there are certain films which cry to out to be seen on big screen. This is one of them.”Others saw Disney making a money play. “You would think with all what’s happening they’d help the people out [and] let us stream the movies but they’re money hungry, they keep on delaying movies,” tweeted @RyanH1904.A number of highly anticipated movies have been delayed in part, according to FILE – Concessions workers stock bins with popcorn and other treats as an AMC theater opens for some of the first showings since it shut down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Aug. 20, 2020, in West Homestead, Pa.Elsewhere in the U.S., AMC Entertainment and Cineworld Plc’s Regal Cinemas have reopened but “haven’t seen huge business,” according to Variety.Because the Marvel movie universe is interconnected, delaying Black Widow meant pushing back release dates for other Marvel offerings such as Eternals and Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.Eternals is now scheduled to open on November 5, 2021, rather than February 12, 2021; Shang Chi is moving from May 7, 2021, to July 9, 2021.Accent on safetyEternals star Kumail Nanjiani tweeted, “There’s a pandemic. Nothing is more important than health & lives. I can’t tell [people] to go to a movie theater until I feel safe going to one.”Beyond the Marvel franchise, the pandemic is also delaying West Side Story, Steven Spielberg’s first foray into movie musicals. Originally scheduled to open on December 18, 2020, it will now be a holiday season release on December 10, 2021.In the meantime, film lovers can look forward to the animated Pixar movie Soul that Disney still plans to release in theaters on November 20. The Empty Man, a horror release from the former 20th Century Fox, is moving up from December to October 23.
 
…

JUBA/GENEVA — While some South Sudanese experts recommend the government adopt a new economic system used by developing states to cut off black market currency exchange and stabilize skyrocketing prices, a new U.N. panel report says the real problem in South Sudan is deeply entrenched government corruption.
 
South Sudan should switch to a developmental state economic system under which the government could control prices, the black-market foreign exchange rate, and the flow of currency in and out of the country, according to Abraham Matoch, economics professor and vice chancellor at the Doctor John Garang Memorial University of Science and Technology in Bor.
 
“There’s no rule in a new country wishing to reconstruct, rehabilitate, and reconstruct to move immediately into a free market economic level which is more or less a catalyst, and therefore, I encourage having a developmental state economic system because we cannot apply a capitalist economic system in a developing country,” Matoch told South Sudan in Focus.
 
The developmental state economic system embodies strong state intervention, as well as extensive regulation and planning.
 
In South Sudan, speculators are able to manipulate foreign exchange rates to their advantage, said Matoch.
 
“If the commercial banks or the forex [bureaus] go and abuse the exchange rate to keep the bulk of the money or dollars with them for black marketing, this will affect the economy. And this is exactly what has actually happened,” Matoch told South Sudan in Focus.FILE – Children play with hula hoops at the Children Friendly Space, run by UNICEF at the United Nations Missions in South Sudan (UNMISS) Protection of Civillians (PoC) site, in Juba, South Sudan, Jan. 15, 2016.A new report by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan blasts South Sudanese officials and their cronies, however, for destroying the nation’s economy, saying the country is mired in crooked schemes aimed at enriching the political elite at the expense of millions of impoverished people who have endured years of conflict and abuse.
 
Looting and pillaging are not just offshoots of war, they are the main drivers of the conflict, according to commission chair Yasmin Sooka.
 
“At one end of the spectrum, South Sudan’s political elites are fighting for control of the country’s oil and mineral resources, in the process stealing their people’s future. At the other, the soldiers in this conflict over resources are offered the chance to abduct and rape women in lieu of their salaries,” said Sooka.   
 
She said the commission has uncovered brazen embezzlement by senior politicians and other government representatives, adding that they have misappropriated a staggering $36 million since 2016. Sooka noted a number of international corporations and multinational banks have aided and abetted in these crimes.  
 
University of Juba economics lecturer Ahmed Morjan agreed that South Sudan’s problems are political, not economic.
 
“An economy that produces goods and services needs to have proper peace and security whereby people will begin to produce import substitution goods and will lessen dependents on imports. If this is done, we expect the country to have enough reserves from the oil money that comes in, the reserves of foreign currency, but this has never happened, and people are not able to produce either for themselves or surpluses for export,” Morjan told South Sudan in Focus.  
 
He said the new finance minister, Athian Diing Athian, and the administration must find a way to end rampant government corruption.
 
“If they can work to lessen corruption, there should be some improvement internally, especially now that the government sometimes is not able to pay its workers, wages and salaries of employees. What the new minister could do is to fight, reduce corruption,” Morjan told VOA. 
…

The rows of lettuce, microgreens and herbs that Himanshu Aggarwal and his mother grow in an enclosed room in a busy New Delhi market began flourishing six months ago, just when the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold in India.Himanshu Aggarwal grows lettuce, microgreens and herbs in an 800-square-foot enclosed room in New Delhi. (Anjana Pasricha/VOA)It was not the best of times. A day after the Aggarwals launched their hydroponic venture, 9Growers, India declared a stringent lockdown, making them nervous about how they would sell their freshly plucked greens amid the pandemic.Surprisingly, the situation helped grow their business. Worried about contracting the virus, people began to focus increasingly on healthful foods, and at the same time, shops became willing to stock their produce.Pratibha Aggarwal helped her son launch the venture 9Growers. (Anjana Pasricha/VOA)”Vendors were open to having good produce, specially during lockdown. They were not even getting basic necessities, and we were giving them fresh produce harvested on the same day,” said Himanshu Aggarwal, 24, who was inspired to take up hydroponic farming after seeing the quality of fruits and vegetables during a trip to Europe. “Even our best produce could not match theirs. So I thought about how to achieve the same standards for a small community, and hydroponics seemed the answer.”Amid growing demand for fresh farm produce without pesticides, young entrepreneurs in Indian cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru are turning their attention to hydroponic farming, where plants grow without soil and are fed mineral nutrients through water. Using much less water than conventional procedures do, hydroponics has won attention as a sustainable farming method in several countries, such as the Netherlands.Some in Delhi have opted to put up their ventures in poly houses on the city’s outskirts. Others are doing it in the heart of the city, in residential or commercial areas, where the plants grow in laboratory-like conditions under artificial light that simulates sunlight. Most of the young entrepreneurs learned about it on the internet and through trials and experiments in their homes.The hydroponic farm is situated on the top floor of a building. (Anjana Pasricha/VOA)Aggarwal’s plants thrive on the top floor of a small building in an 800-square-foot room. Accessed through an electronics store, the unlikely space transports a visitor from the honking cars and traffic snarls to the surreal sight of the 18 varieties of lettuce and other leafy greens thriving in vertical panels in one of Delhi’s most crowded markets.“We are giving them everything they want — temperature, air quality, humidity. We are monitoring all the aspects for them so that they give the best result,” Aggarwal said.The appeal of greens growing in a clean, germ-free environment has grown during the pandemic as people focus more on eating healthful foods, according to shop owners. While the higher cost is a barrier for some, high-income consumers in cities are increasingly willing to pay the price for fresh produce.Boxes of hydroponic greens are displayed among other vegetables. (Anjana Pasricha/VOA)In an upscale neighborhood in New Delhi, Mohinder Pal Singh, who stocks the hydroponic greens, said he gets repeat orders from customers who try them out. “Due to COVID, a lot of people have switched to greens to boost immunity. People have also become very conscious of eating nutritious food,” he said. “So sale of such produce is increasing.”The owner of a fruit-and-vegetable shop in a Delhi market says hydroponic produce is selling amid rising demand for healthful food amid the pandemic. (Anjana Pasricha/VOA)Optimistic about the growing demand for local produce in cities, some entrepreneurs are scaling up their businesses. Rohit Nagdewani, the founder of farmingV2, plans to expand to other cities — his seven farms in Delhi produce about 2,500 kilograms of hydroponic produce every month. “People are becoming increasingly aware of the source of the food and how many hands it is exchanging, so there is a big future in hydroponics, where supplies reach within a few hours of harvesting,” Nagdewani said. “All that is fueling demand. That is why I have put my entire savings into it,” he said with a laugh.For another Delhi-based entrepreneur, Raghav Varma, 30, the inspiration to turn to city farming came during a visit to the hill state of Uttarakhand, where he saw hydroponic produce being grown for export. Back home, his experiments showed that he was able to grow a 300-gram head of lettuce in a small ice cream container on his windowsill. “It was really fresh and crunchy because it is grown in water. So I thought this was an amazing way to produce food for urban dwellers,” said Varma, who has co-founded Farmstacks.A customer looks at a box of microgreens. (Anjana Pasricha/VOA)However, the entrepreneurs admit that consumer awareness about hydroponics needs to be raised. To do that, Varma allows people to choose the greens they want to grow for their own use at a small community farm in Delhi.Most of the entrepreneurs do not have a farming background; Varma was a digital marketing executive, Aggarwal a corporate employee, and Nagdewani started his career as an automotive journalist.They are proud of their new calling. “ ‘Urban farmer’ is actually a very good tag. It’s a new profession, I would say, and it gives us a sense that we are back to our roots from where we started,” Aggarwal said with a smile.
…

Britain became the latest European country to impose restrictions on socializing Wednesday following a sharp rise in coronavirus transmission rates. The number of new cases is roughly doubling every week – and the Chief Medical Officer has warned of 50,000 new infections daily if the pattern continues. Britain has suffered the highest number of coronavirus deaths in Europe, with over 41,000 fatalities. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
…