The CM should have taken ministers in charge of Industries, Food Supplies or Revenue and Disaster Management departments along with him, the leaders opined.
“It suggests that the CM doesn’t trust his ministers. If he has trust on them, then the ministers of concerned departments should have also accompanied him along with the secretaries. It seems he is disregarding his ministers,” said BJP leader Pradeep Purohit.
Senior Congress leader and Jatni MLA Suresh Routray said, “Ministers had accompanied him (Naveen Patnaik) during his last foreign trip to London in May, 2012. This time, he, ignoring them, has taken only bureaucrats with him. This is perhaps why people in the State believe ministers are not so powerful as to transfer even a peon.”
In response to the Oppositions’ criticisms, Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Pramila Mallik said, “The CM is well aware of everything and can talk on anything. He is capable enough to get things done by himself. It is the job of the Opposition parties to oppose the government. So they are always digging up dirt on the government.”
Notably, during his London visit, the then ministers like Ramesh Majhi and Usha Devi had accompanied Naveen.
Meanwhile, after reaching Rome, Patnaik met India’s Ambassador to Italy, Neena Malhotra.
He left New Delhi at 4.15 am on Monday and reached Rome later in the day.
During his six-day stay in Rome, he will attend an event of the World Food Progarmme (WFP) where he will share the details of transformative initiatives his government has taken to ensure food security.
He will also share details regarding disaster management.
Odia expats living in Netherland, Germany, Belgium and Italy are scheduled to meet the CM on June 23. During his stay, Patnaik will also meet Pope Francis at the Vatican City.
“We are very excited for the fact that our CM is on a foreign trip. He had last visited London in 2012. We are going to Rome to meet him,” said Sukant Kumar Sahu, an Odia expat living in London.
Notably, the CM is scheduled to reach Dubai on June 26 where he will meet potential investors.
"Hello from Rome! I'm here as Co-Chair of @ipacglobal, and today we're talking about #China and its disrespect of human rights and the rule of law. As the #G20summit kicks off, we're highlighting China's behaviour to the international community," Barry Ward said in a tweet.
"I'm in Rome today for the first in-person conference of @ipacglobal. As world leaders come together for the G20, they must confront the CCP's attacks on human rights and the rule of law," Garnett Genius, another participant of the meet, tweeted.
"'Every time I see a world leader shaking hands with Xi Jinping, I am reminded that the survival of my community is not important enough for them to take a stand'... An incredibly powerful statement from @MahmutRahima at the @ipacglobal #G20 counter-meeting this morning," Stop Uyghur Genocide said in a tweet.
India has joined IPAC as the 21st legislature represented. "India joins IPAC with co-chairs @SujeetKOfficial and @ninong_erring. As the world's largest democracy, India has an integral part to play in the upholding of the rules based international order. India is the 21st legislature represented in #IPAC," IPAC tweeted.
Chinese mouthpiece Global Times has attacked IPAC as conversion of secessionists. Global Times said that Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu's visit is a trip about the convergence of China's secessionist forces. Later this month, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a group of anti-China lawmakers from the West, will hold a meeting in Rome. The leading figures of many secessionist groups that aim to divide China will attend the meeting, and Wu was invited to it as well.
"Wu, a leading pro-Taiwan secession figure, has repeatedly attacked the Chinese mainland and advocated secessionist ideas through this anti-China coalition. With Wu's participation, a combination of secessionists of Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong has formed. This is a serious provocation against the one-China principle by the anti-China forces, such as the IPAC," Global Times said.
The conference is to focus on leaders targeted by Beijing, with Tibet, Hong Kong and Uighur activists also invited, the inter-parliamentary alliance said, Taipei Times had reported earlier.
Taiwan Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu has been invited by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international cross-party group of legislators, to its meeting in Rome on Friday.
"Representatives from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) — a body of some 200 global parliamentarians — will gather in Rome to stage a counter-meeting ahead of the G20 Leaders Summit to demand a tougher stance towards the Chinese government," the group said in a statement.
The conference "will see parliamentarians from five continents meet with prominent leaders of groups targeted by the Chinese government, including Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, Sikyong of the Central Tibetan Administration Penpa Tsering, former Hong Kong legislator Nathan Law and Uyghur artist and activist Rahima Mahmut," it said.
Legislators from around the world have gathered on the fringes of the G20 summit in Rome to protest against the presence of the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, and urge leaders not to let China off the hook over human rights abuses in return for Beijing's cooperation on the climate crisis, The Guardian reported.
Many of those at the Rome counter-meeting have been banned from travelling to China as punishment for campaigning against Chinese repression in Xinjiang, the report said.
They are due to be addressed remotely by the Taiwanese foreign minister, Joseph Wu, as China steps up its threat to recapture Taiwan. Wu is on his first trip to Europe since 2019 and had been expected in Rome, but the Italian leg of his journey was cancelled with speculation that Rome was unwilling to give him a visa at such a sensitive time.
The Chinese President, Xi Jinping, was not attending the G20 summit in person. He has recently reaffirmed the reunification of Taiwan as a Chinese goal and increased military activity close to the island. China has described the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) counter-meeting as a gathering of secessionists, the report added.
The gathering in Rome of IPAC – a body of about 200 global parliamentarians from different political perspectives – is the kind of event that will infuriate China. The group is due to hear from Penpa Tsering, the Sikyong of the Central Tibetan Administration, from the Hong Kong activist and former politician Nathan Law, and the Uyghur artist and activist Rahima Mahmut, the report added.
Dovile Sakaliene, a Lithuanian MP who was sanctioned by China in 2020, said: "We are here to ensure that the People's Republic of China does not get a free pass at this G20. The leaders of the summit must realise very clearly what is at risk when they treat the PRC as an equal member of the club and what is the cost of making Uyghur genocide, Hong Kong and Taiwan bargaining chips. Let us not fool ourselves into trusting the PRC as a reliable partner in fighting the climate crisis, a state that sanctions human rights defenders and is currently imposing draconian population control measures."
The former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, also in Rome, described the IPAC bipartisan meeting as "utterly unprecedented". He said: "Our collective purpose is to demand of the G20 governments that they publicly recognise the enormous threat posed by the People's Republic of China.
"Whether it is debauching the financial system, disregarding global trading rules, committing genocide against the Uyghurs, trashing the international treaty on Hong Kong or threatening to invade Taiwan – the time has come to call the PRC out."
"CONI has formalised its bid to host the Winter Olympics in 2026 in Milan and Cortina," said Lombardy region president Attilio Fontana on Monday.
In a statement confirming Milan and Cortina as the candidate host cities for the 2026 Games, CONI President Giovanni Malago said Italy's bid would be an "innovative project".
"It will be in line with the Agenda 2020 guidelines and new rules and will include the Lombardy and Veneto regions, not just Milan and Cortina," Malago's wrote in a letter to International Olympic Committee (IOC) chair Thomas Bach.
The IOC is due in September 2019 to announce its choice of host city for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Swedish capital Stockholm, the Canadian city of Calgary and Erzurum in Turkey were the other candidates for the 2026 games.
The Italian bid originally also included Turin, but it pulled out after refusing to cooperate with the other two candidate cities.
Turin already hosted the 2006 Winter Games, while the mountain resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo hosted them in 1956.
He has reportedly rented a $13,000 a night villa at the Belmond Hotel Caruso in Ravello to enjoy with the love of his life.
[caption id="attachment_323101" align="alignnone" width="750"] Pic Credit: meaww.com[/caption]
The Canadian singer, 25, looked like he was having the time of his life as he spent quality time with his soon to be wife who wore a skimpy black bikini while they were on a yacht on the Amalfi Coast on Friday, reports dailymail.co.uk.
In between showering each other with kisses, they seemed immersed in an intense conversation.
Although there were still no official figures on the number of people missing, Italian authorities did not rule out a possibility of a dozen bodies trapped under the rubble.
The search and rescue operations were concentrated among the cement blocks of the pillar, which collapsed along the left bank of the Polcevera River, Efe news reported.
Meanwhile, 15 people continued to be hospitalized in the San Martino hospital, nine of whom were in a serious condition. Six hundred and sixty-four people and 331 families were evacuated from the houses located under the bridge.
State funerals are expected to be held on Saturday for some of the victims, among whom were four French tourists and two young Albanian nationals working in Italy. Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation into the incident.
A roughly 100-metre section of Morandi Bridge collapsed amid torrential rains on Tuesday, sending dozens of vehicles crashing onto a riverbed, railway lines and two warehouses.
The government on Wednesday said it would be revoking concessions to Autostrade per l'Italia, the company that manages the country's highways, following the accident.
"Forty million followers means 40 million people, 40 million hearts, minds, and passions," Dario Edoardo Vigano, the Vatican official tasked with coordinating the Pope's Twitter and Instagram accounts, told Vatican Radio.
"It is a world, a relationship, a community: this figure emphasizes that so many people continue to follow, day after day, even by way of (140-character bursts), the Pope's teaching authority, which reaches people in very different ways," said Vigano.
Such is the importance the pontiff attaches to his Twitter account, "he closely and carefully checks all the tweets" before they go out, Vigano said.
Until July, Francis was the most followed world leader on Twitter but has now been overtaken by US President Donald Trump who has 40.3 million followers.
"The Secretariat of State firmly denies the authenticity of the document and declares the information contained in it to be completely false and without foundation," the Holy See said, as per Vatican Radio.
The Vatican statement referred to the letter allegedly written by late Italian cardinal Lorenzo Antonetti nearly 20 years ago which is due to be published in an upcoming book by Italian investigative reporter Emiliano Fittipaldi, "The Imposters".
Italian daily La Repubblica on Monday published the five-page typed letter with an article by Fittipaldi, who says he obtained the alleged missive dated March 28, 1998 from "a source".
The alleged letter by Antonetti, then head of the Vatican's property office (Apsa) is among 200 pages of invoices and documents which Fittipaldi claims to have obtained from the unnamed source.
"If the document is genuine, it could open up shocking new angles on the schoolgirl's disappearance in 1983. If it is a fake, it reveals an unprecedented power struggle within the pontificate of Francis," Fittipaldi wrote in La Repubblica.
The alleged 250,000 euros of expenses between 1983 and 1997 include medical bills for Orlandi and accommodation in London. The last entry speaks of an alleged transfer to the Vatican and the "completion of final procedures".
Numerous visits to London by Vatican officials are listed, as well as the involvement of 'Commando 1', possibly a Vatican secret service unit, Fittipaldi suggested.
"It is especially sad that with these false publications - which, among other things, wound the honour of the Holy See - the immense sorrow of the Orlandi family, with whom the Secretariat of State re-affirms its solidarity, should be exacerbated," the Vatican stated.
Vatican spokesman Greg Burke on Monday slammed the claims as "false and ridiculous.
Orlandi's family has said it wants to meet Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin to "calmly discuss" the alleged letter, according their lawyer, Laura Sgro.
The disappearance of Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee, who went missing in central Rome after a music lesson on June 22, 1983 is one of Italy's most famous unsolved mysteries. Over the years, a number of theories have sprung up to explain what happened to her.
Possibly the most disturbing allegation was a claim in 2012 by Italian priest and Vatican exorcist Gabriele Pietro Amorth, who alleged Orlandi was knapped and forced to take part in sex parties and was later killed and her body disposed of.
Other theories include that Orlandi was abducted by the mafia in an attempt to blackmail the Vatican, or by terrorists seeking the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk jailed for trying to assassinate John Paul II.
Soon after the evacuees landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) from Rome at around 9.15 a.m. and went through a proper medical observation, they were shifted to the ITBP's Chhawla quarantine facility in west Delhi.
Of the 263, 208 are male while 55 female and most of them are students aged between 25 and 30 years.
The evacuees were sent to the Chhawla camp in different ITBP buses after they completed the thermal scanning and immigration formalities at the airport, ITBP Spokesperson Vivek Pandey told IANS, adding their preliminary coronavirus test in Italy was found negative.
"All the 263 evacuees will be kept for a minimum of 14 days at the ITBP quarantine facility under close observation."
Air India flight from Rome, Italy landed at IGI Airport, New Delhi at 9.15 AM. All 263 evacuees taken to ITBP Chhawla Quarantine Facility, New Delhi. ITBP team received the evacuees after thermal screening and immigration.#IndiaFightsCorona #CoronaVirusUpdates#COVID19 pic.twitter.com/e1pJblpTUh
— All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) March 22, 2020
With these evacuees, the total number of occupants currently being facilitated at the ITBP camp is 478. A batch of 215 evacuees from Milan in Italy are still there in the ITBP's Chhawla camp. They are part of those 218 who were shifted to the camp on March 15 after their evacuation from Milan. Two of them have been shifted to the Safdarjung hospital after they were found positive symptoms of coronavirus while one has been allowed to go home as he was found negative. Others are also tested negative.
Also Read: Bihar Reports First COVID-19 Death, 2nd In Maharashtra With Total 324 Cases In India
This is the fifth batch of evacuees which has been shifted to the ITBP centre in Chhawla so far.
Accordingly, Air India had sent a Boeing 777 aircraft to Rome-Fiumicino International Airport in Italy on Saturday to bring back stranded Indians amid the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak which has claimed the lives of over 10,000 people across the globe.
As per a senior Air India official, the flight was operated on a Boeing 777 extended-range (ER) aircraft.
Last week, Air India had sent an aircraft to Milan to bring back over 230 Indian stranded there. The airline has already suspended operations on Delhi-Rome and Delhi-Milan routes till March 28.
As the country observed 'Janata Curfew' and millions across the country decided to stay indoors to help check the spread of the virus, Punjab became the latest state to decide on lockdown till March 31.
Rajasthan government had on Saturday night decided on lockdown to contain the virus
The Odisha government had also on Saturday announced a "near-total" shutdown in five districts of Khurda, Ganjam, Cuttack, Kendrapara and Angul and in towns of Puri, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Balasore, Rourkela, Bhadrak, Jajpur Road and Jajpur.
The Union Health Ministry said novel coronavirus cases in India have risen to 324.
However, the ICMR stated that a total of 341 individuals have been confirmed positive among suspected cases and contacts of known positive cases.
A total of 16,999 samples from 16,109 individuals have been tested for SARS-CoV2 as on March 22 10 am, the ICMR said.
The Health Ministry's 324 figure includes 41 foreign nationals and five deaths reported from Delhi, Karnataka, Punjab and Maharashtra (2)so far.
Also Read: Coronavirus: Indian Railways Cancels All Passenger, Express Trains Till March 31
"The total number of active COVID-19 cases across India stands at 295 so far," the ministry said, adding 24 others have been cured/discharged/migrated while five have died.
In an unprecedented move, the railways on Sunday announced suspension of all its passenger services from March 22 midnight to March 31 midnight and said only goods trains will run during the said period.
The railways had already trimmed down its services on Friday by cancelling a majority of trains. However, it had allowed all trains that had already started the journey to continue.
According to a new order issued by the railways, only goods trains will run from March 22 midnight to March 31 midnight.
In Assam, the second test of a four-and-a-half-year-old girl, who had initially tested positive for coronavirus, has turned out to be negative, state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Sunday.
"The 4-year-old child who was suspected of #covid19 and tested in Jorhat Medical College and RMRC, Dibrugarh has been found NEGATIVE. There is no Covid19 positive case in Assam so far," Sarma tweeted, attaching a copy of the report.
Maharashtra has reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases at 63, including three foreigners, followed by Kerala at 52 including seven foreign nationals, according to health ministry data.
Delhi has reported 27 positive cases, which include one foreigner, while Uttar Pradesh has recorded 25 cases, including one foreigner.
Telangana has reported 21 cases, including 11 foreigners. Rajasthan has reported 24 cases, including two foreigners. In Haryana, there are 17 cases, which include 14 foreigners.
Karnataka has 20 coronavirus patients. Punjab and Ladakh have 13 cases each. Gujarat has 14 cases while Tamil Nadu has 6 cases which includes 2 foreigners. Chandigarh has five cases.
Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal reported four cases each. Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand have reported three cases each. Odisha and Himachal Pradesh reported 2 cases each. Puducherry and Chhattisgarh have reported one case each.
(With IANS & PTI inputs)