World – Link Punjabi

Everyone thought Ravindra Jadeja’s absence would weaken India but Axar Patel was outstanding: Andrew McDonald

Editor — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 07:42:55 +0000

HYDERABAD: Ravindra Jadeja’s absence from the T20 series was expected to weaken India but the hosts found an able replacement in “outstanding” Axar Patel, said Australia coach Andrew McDonald.
Left-arm spinner Axar, who was shoed in as a like-for-like replacement for the injured Jadeja, impressed everyone with his bowling, ending as the leading wicket-taker in the three-match series.
“Axar, in particular, had an outstanding series. With Jaddu out everyone thought that it might become a bit of a weakness for India, but they’ve found another one again, which tends to happen,” McDonald said at the post-match press conference after India clinched the series.
The Australian bowling attack, comprising the pace duo of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, was taken to the cleaners by the Indian batters.

Asked if it’s a concern heading to the World Cup, McDonald said: “Across the series the run rate was high, it was entertaining cricket from the get-go. Bat dominated the ball, so there was really no place to hide for bowling units, in particular death.
“We worked our way through some plans. We saw some good results with some of the plans that we implemented that might be able to transition to the World Cup.”
McDonald added that Australia will have reinforcements in the form of Mitchell Starc when they begin the defense of their World Cup title at home next month.

“The connection between here (India) and Australia might be slightly different, a little bit more bounce, different tactics. Mitchell Starc comes back into the picture being one of our best death bowlers. So, we feel like we’ll get reinforcements there.”
McDonald feels most of the bowling attack is “under the pump” due to the skills of the batters.
“The conversations always going to be can you get better at your death bowling? The answer to that is yes.
“We encourage our guys to make good decisions and execute them. Sometimes the batter out-executes you and we’ve seen that with Hardik (Pandya) across the series.
“Suryakumar Yadav was outstanding today and he’s gonna be dangerous in the World Cup but he showed what he can do.”
Australia were without a few of their World Cup-bound players due to injuries but the head coach feels the defending champions have enough depth to overcome the situation.
“It’s fortuitous that some of the guys got the opportunity here. We got a couple of injuries which are concerning leading into a World Cup. You don’t like to see some of your mainstay players out of the team leading in but we feel as though we’ve got some good options in depth.”
In the absence of David Warner, who was rested, Cameron Green “embraced the challenge of opening”.
The all-rounder amassed 118 runs, including two belligerent half-centuries to give Australia great starts.
“I’ve asked him to show great intent on top of the order and everything that we’re seeing so far shows that he’s doing that.
“It’s probably opportunistic the way that he’s come into the opening position with obviously David Warner not being here and a couple of other players from our World Cup 15.
“And that’s all you can do, given an opportunity… Before we came over here we thought he had the skill sets to be able to succeed there, and he’s taken on some of the best bowlers in world cricket.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Bharat Jodo Yatra enters Palakkad district

Editor — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 07:41:53 +0000

PALAKKAD: The Congress party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra resumed its journey on Monday from Shornur in Kerala’s Palakkad district with hundreds of party workers accompanying Rahul Gandhi in the walk.
The morning leg of the march, which entered its 19th day, will cover 12.3 km and halt at Pattambi.
The Congress party tweeted that the yatra entered Palakkad district with “excitement and hope”.
“…And we can’t wait to start this journey with you,” it said in the tweet.

Hello Palakkad,#BharatJodoYatra comes to you with excitement and hope. And we can’t wait to start this journey wi… https://t.co/U4B0Yk68Ve

— Congress (@INCIndia) 1664152200000

Senior Congress leader K Muraleedharan and Leader of Opposition in Kerala Assembly V D Satheesan joined Gandhi in the morning session of the yatra.
Hundreds of people waited on both sides of the road to meet Gandhi. A group of young girls presented the Congress leader with a framed drawing of himself.
“Couldn’t have asked for a better start to the Padyatra. The young minds are coming out in large numbers to bless @RahulGandhi Ji and all the Padtyatris. We owe them a brighter future. Towards achieving our goal. #BharatJodoYatra,” the party said in a tweet along with a photo of the young girls holding Gandhi’s drawing.
The Congress leader will garland a Mahatma Gandhi statue on the way to Pattambi, the party said. The yatra will resume at 5 pm and conclude at Koppam, it said.
The Congress party’s 3,570 km and 150-day long foot march started from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu on September 7 and will conclude in Jammu and Kashmir.
The yatra, which entered Kerala on the evening of September 10, will go through the state covering 450 km, touching seven districts in 19 days before entering Karnataka on October 1.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Pakistani military helicopter crashes killing six soldiers

Editor — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 07:27:45 +0000

QUETTA, Pakistan: A Pakistani military helicopter crashed in the southwest area of the country late on Sunday killing all six soldiers on board, including two officers, the military said on Monday.
The helicopter crashed during a “flying mission” near Harnai in the province of Balochistan, the military’s public relations wing said in a statement. No reason for the crash was given.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan pens a gratitude note for all the warmth and love for Ponniyin Selvan:

Editor — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 07:26:09 +0000

Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is currently awaiting the release of her next film ‘Ponniyin Selvan: I’ The actress will be essaying a dual role in this period drama. Post a grand Mumbai event for the film, Aishwarya penned a gratitude note thanking her fans and well-wishers.

Sharing a selfie, Aishwarya wrote, “Thank you all for your love, warmest wishes and blessings… Lots of love always”.

With PS-I, Aishwarya has reunited with her guru. Speaking about the same, Aishwarya had earlier shared, “I worked in my first film with Mani garu, who is my guru. I regard myself blessed that I got the opportunity to start my journey as an actor working with him. He’s the perfect school and the perfect guru.”

Aishwarya also revealed that her daughter Aradhya got a chance to be on the sets and how mesmerised she was.

The 48-year-old actress shared, “Seeing a period drama is always exciting and she did get the opportunity to visit me on set. It’s mesmerising, I could see that in her eyes. She already knows my admiration for working with him. She respects him, and she is awe of him too. Sir too made her feel warm and his affection is so sweet”.

She further revealed, “I think, one thing which really excited her the most was there was this one day when she was on the sets, Mani Ratnam Sir gave her the opportunity to say ‘Action’, and she couldn’t get over that. I think none of us have got that opportunity yet. We were really surprised as much as she was. It’s a really precious and cherished moment for her”.

‘Ponniyin Selvan: I’ is adapted from Kalki Krishnamurthy’s novel by the same name. It will hit the screens on September 30 and will be released in Tamil along with the dubbed versions in Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

SC cites Hindus’ religious assets rights to counter Waqf Act critics

Editor — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 12:49:44 +0000

NEW DELHI: As BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay challenged various provision of Waqf Act and alleged that why only Muslims be allowed to manage properties when there was no law for other religious community, the Supreme Court on Monday reminded him that there are Hindu Endowments Act framed by many states on as per which only Hindus can manage and administer religious places and their assets.
The apex court was hearing a plea filed by Upadhyay contending that the Waqf Act was totally against the secularism, unity and integrity of the nation as the law was made to administer the properties of Muslims but there were no similar laws for followers of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jain-ism, Sikhism, Judaism, Bahaism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity.
As the petition also raised questions on the impartiality of the judicial officer who is part of the tribunal set up under law, Justice Joseph said that such contention was shocking as a judicial officer decides the case on the basis of law and asked senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the petitioner, whether he also believed so.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Imran Khan claims Shehbaz Sharif felt intimidated in Putin’s presence

Editor — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 12:48:35 +0000

ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan mocked his successor Shehbaz Sharif, saying that the latter felt intimidated in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the recently-concluded Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan.
Addressing a public gathering in Chakwal on Monday, Khan took a jibe at the premier claiming that his legs were trembling in the presence of Putin during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the 22nd SCO Summit, Geo News reported.
Khan criticised Sharif for his recent foreign trips following flood devastations in the country and said: “Look at Shehbaz’s insensitivity. He is visiting (countries) abroad during such conditions. What battle is he going to win aboard while the country has been flooded?”
Nitpicking the premier for his conversation with the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the PTI Chairman said: “I have not seen any prime minister talk like the way Shehbaz did with the UN Secretary-General. He was asking him for money.”
He further revealed that Guterres knows that 60 per cent of Sharif’s cabinet is released on bail.
“On what basis would he (Secretary-Ggeneral) give you money as he knows that corruption cases are registered against the premier?” Khan queried.
The former premier also pointed his guns at Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari denouncing him for leaving the country during a time of crisis.
“Bilawal also went abroad. They have been imposed (on us) because he will listen to their orders,” Khan added.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Smriti Mandhana rises to career-best 2nd position in T20Is, ranked 7th in ODIs

Editor — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 12:47:12 +0000

DUBAI: Star India opener Smriti Mandhana on Tuesday achieved a career-best world number two rank in T20Is and climbed to the seventh spot in ODIs in the latest ICC Women’s Player Rankings, riding on her stupendous show against England.
The left-handed batter had aggregated 111 runs in the three-match T20I series against England. The performance helped her jump two places.
Mandhana, a former top-ranked batter in ODIs, also jumped three slots to number seven after a match-winning 91 in the first ODI against England.
Among other Indians, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur has zoomed four spots to ninth place in ODIs, all-rounder Deepti Sharma gained one place to reach 32nd position and wicketkeeper Yastika Bhatia jumped eight places to 37th following India’s seven-wicket win in Hove on Saturday.
Deepti also climbed six places to 12th in bowlers’ list.
For England, Emma Lamb and Sophie Ecclestone have gained three slots each and are 64th and 72nd among batters, respectively, while Charlie Dean is up to 86th in the list.
Dean is also up four places to 20th among bowlers, while Kate Cross is in the top 10 after grabbing two wickets with her seam bowling.
In the T20I rankings, Kaur (up one place to 14th among batters), new-ball bowler Renuka Singh (up three places to 10th among bowlers) and spinner Radha Yadav (up four places to 14th among bowlers) made notable gains.
All-rounders Sneha Rana and Pooja Vastrakar are in joint-41st position.
England’s Sophia Dunkley jumped 12 spots to 32nd after leading the run-aggregate with 115 runs in the T20I series, while Alice Capsey is now 20th among batters.
Zimbabwe players Sharne Mayers (up 28 places to 39th among batters), captain Mary-Anne Musonda (up 10 places to 50th among batters) and Precious Marange (up 24 places to 34th among bowlers), who are featuring in the ongoing ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier in Abu Dhabi, have also moved up the rankings.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

One farmer dying every hour in BJP rule: Congress

Editor — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 12:46:06 +0000

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Tuesday held the policies of the ruling BJP dispensation responsible for farmers’ suicides in the country, claiming that one farmer died by suicide every hour.
Addressing a press conference in the wake of a September 17 suicide of Pune-based Dashrath Lakshman Kedari, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said the farmer, in his suicide note, held “the BJP government’s policies responsible for his death and noted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was concerned only with himself”.
“Dashrath Lakshman Kedari in his suicide note said he did not have any money to pay back his loans and was ending his life due to helplessness. He sought reasonable MSP (Minimum Support Price) for farm produce as a farmers’ right and blamed the policies of the incumbent government for his decision to end life,” Shrinate said.
She said as many as 10,881 people involved in agriculture died by suicide in 2021, which was 6.6 per cent of 1,64,033 suicide deaths last year.
“This means, every day 30 farmers are dying by suicide and every hour more than one farmer is dying,” she said.
Citing the National Crimes Record Bureau data, she said more than 53,881 farmers killed themselves between 2014 and 2021, which translates to 21 deaths daily.
Shrinate said it was ironic that 2022, the year by which the government had promised to double the income of farmers, was actually witnessing “barely Rs 27 average income” for them.
“Who is responsible for the dire straits of Indian farmers? The policies of this government,” the Congress leader said.
She also recalled the death of over 700 farmers during the year-long farmers agitation against the three agricultural reforms laws to allege the “government’s apathy towards farmers and the farm sector”.
Further, she said the government’s remarks before the Supreme Court that payment of MSP over and above 50 per cent of the cost to farmers would distort the market, and that the Centre’s decision not to procure the produce if state governments bought them above the MSP clearly went against the farmers.
The Congress leader said the government had “looted the farmers” by increasing diesel prices, imposing a range of GST on farm products — five per cent on fertiliser; 18 per cent on insecticides, 12 per cent on farm equipment, and 18 per cent on tractors, “pushing the production cost to Rs 25,000 per hectare.”
Quoting data from the National Sample Service Organisation, Shrinate said the average daily earnings of farmers now stood at Rs 12 as against the average loan of Rs 74,000.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Asia Cup: Suryakumar, Kohli star as India beat Hong Kong by 40 runs to seal Super Four spot

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:14:05 +0000

DUBAI: In the 26 balls he faced against Hong Kong on Wednesday, Suryakumar Yadav demonstrated all the right things about his T20 batting while exposing everything that is not quite right with India’s top-three. Surya walked out to bat at the end of the 13th over with the scoreboard reading 94/2 after KL Rahul went for a 39-ball 35 and Virat Kohli still striking just about run-a-ball.
When he walked off unbeaten with 68 runs to his name and Virat Kohli by his side with a 59 off 44, he had propelled India to 192/2. In doing so, Surya had put the game well beyond the spirited Hong Kong team who finished with 152/5 having cashed in on India’s two inexperienced bowlers Arshdeep Singh (1/44) and Avesh Khan (1/53). India’s head coach Rahul Dravid, wearing a particularly unamused look in the dugout, will go into the Super 4s with the same set of unresolved issues.
The pitch and Hong Kong’s inexperienced bowling looked non-conducive to the modern-day slam-bang T20 batting till the time Surya took strike. Captain Rohit Sharma’s dismissal for 21 off 13 earlier in the innings at mid-on was indicative of a double-paced pitch.
It was one of those days when the scoreboard belied the intent of the Indian batters, barringSurya. The first two balls he faced, he swept left-arm spinner Yasim Murtaza for boundaries on either side of long-leg. All of a sudden, the pitch started looking different while he was on strike.
This match was always about oiling the machinery. Virat Kohli did get to spend enough time in the middle and got the runs under his belt. But if his arduous partnership with Rahul is anything to go by, there was a heavy layer of rust on the top order.
It was bizarre till the time Rahul and Kohli batted together. The match was reduced to having a knock in the nets to get a feel of the ball. It seemed spending time in the middle was a greater priority than getting a move on. Perhaps, knowing the batting credentials of Hong Kong gave them that liberty.
The duo waited for balls to land absolutely in their zone to go for the big shots. Credit to Hong Kong bowlers, they offered very few. In his 44-ball knock, Kohli found the fence only four times. Three of those times he cleared the deep mid-wicket stand. That’s evidence of being cautious.
Surya’s innings showed it was neither the bowling nor the pitch. It was about the intent and confidence in his skills that shredded the inexperienced team.
For teams like India, matches like these are meant to flex their muscles to the extent where it looks like they are bullying the newbies. For 13 overs, Hong Kong must have believed they got away. Surya moved around the crease on his nimble foot, targeted all parts of the ground and ended up bullying them smashing four out of his six sixes in the last over medium-pacer Haroon Arshad even as Kohli looked content knocking the ball down the ground with a straight bat.
Hopefully, the time spent in the middle has shaken off the rust for Kohli and Rahul. The big teams won’t offer so much time to ease into an innings.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Govt to give states 15L tonne of chana

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:09:39 +0000

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Wednesday decided to dispose of 15 lakh tonne of chana procured under its schemes to states at a discounted rate, incurring a cost of Rs 1,200 crore. It also raised the procurement ceiling for tur, urad and masur from current 25% to 40% under the price stabilisation scheme.
While the first measure will help states utilise the subsidised chana for various welfare schemes and free up space for stocking pulses which will be procured during the rabi crop season, the second decision has been taken considering the rise in prices of the three other pulses. There are indications of the area under tur cultivation being reduced this year and that has also caused prices to rise.
The Centre will offer 15 lakh tonne chana to states at a discount of Rs 8 per kg over the issue price of sourcing state on first-come-first-serve basis. “This will be one-time dispensation for 12 months or till complete disposal of 15 lakh tonnes stock of chana, whichever is earlier.” it said.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

WHO: New Covid cases, deaths keep falling nearly everywhere

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:08:50 +0000

GENEVA: The number of new coronavirus cases and deaths reported globally continued to fall nearly everywhere in the world in what the World Health Organization described as a “welcome decline” at a media briefing on Wednesday.
The UN health agency said there were 4.5 million new Covid-19 cases reported last week, a 16% drop from the previous week. Deaths were also down by 13%, with about 13,500 fatalities. WHO said Covid-19 infections dropped everywhere in the world while deaths decreased everywhere except for Southeast Asia, where they climbed by 15% and in the Western Pacific, where they rose by 3%.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that with the coming onset of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the possible emergence of a more dangerous new Covid-19 variant, experts expect to see a spike in hospitalizations and deaths. Tedros said vaccination rates, even in rich countries, were still too low, noting that 30% of health workers and 20% of older people remain unimmunized.
“These vaccination gaps pose a risk to all of us,” he said. “Please get vaccinated if you are not and a booster if it’s recommended that you have one.”
In the US, the Food and Drug Administration cleared its first update to Covid-19 vaccines on Wednesday, booster doses that target today’s most common omicron strain. Authorities said shots could begin within days.
Until now, Covid-19 vaccines have targeted the original coronavirus strain, even as wildly different mutants emerged. The new US boosters are combination, or “bivalent,” shots. They contain half that original vaccine recipe and half protection against the newest omicron versions, called BA.4 and BA.5, which are considered the most contagious yet.
Earlier this month, Britain decided it would offer adults 50 and over a different booster option from Moderna, a combo shot targeting that initial BA.1 omicron strain.
On Friday, the European Medicines Agency will consider whether to authorize the combination Covid-19 vaccine including BA.1 made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Another version of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine incorporating the BA.5 subvariant of omicron is also under review by the EU regulator.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Isro’s aim: 10% share in global space economy | Bengaluru News – Times of India

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:06:27 +0000

New Isro chief S Somanath (Photo: Union minister Jitendra Singh/Twitter)

BENGALURU: Isro chairman S Somanath said in Bengaluru on Monday that the agency has its eyes set on increasing India’s share in the global space economy from about 2% to a two-digit number.
Speaking at the 75th Independence Day celebrations at Isro headquarters, he said: “…What lies ahead is more important than what we’ve accomplished.” Expressing various institutes’ desired growth path for the next 25 years, he said the department of space’s vision was: “To see our share of space economy (grow) from less than 2% of the global economy to a higher value of typically 10%.
” For this to be achieved in the next few years, he believed drastic structural changes are needed in the way the department works.Somnath saw tremendous growth in business opportunities in the space sector and said there is a need to work towards it by enabling people with the right aptitude and capability.
“While Isro and DoS continue to make great strides in technology development…we will look at the private ecosystem for making the business transactions in space sector grow,” he said.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Australia pick Singapore-born Tim David in T20 World Cup squad

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:05:39 +0000

Singapore-born all-rounder Tim David has been named in Australia’s Twenty20 World Cup squad, while legspinner Mitchell Swepson has been omitted, Cricket Australia said on Thursday.

T20 specialist David, who was raised in Western Australia, burst into the spotlight in the Pakistan Super League last season and has become hot property as a finishing batsman in global leagues.
“Tim continues to establish himself with some quality performances in leagues around the world, earning a place in the squad,” selector George Bailey said in a statement.

Tim David can hit a LONG ball! And captain Aaron Finch is looking forward to seeing his power showcased in the n… https://t.co/jN6QBIvKne

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) 1662006540000

“He is a highly gifted, natural ball-striker who will add extra batting depth to the group which has had a lot of success in T20 cricket.”
David is the only notable inclusion in the squad for Australia’s World Cup defence on home soil starting in October.
“Mitchell Swepson was unlucky to miss out based on conditions in the UAE at the last World Cup where we planned for tired, spinning wickets compared to what we would expect are good batting conditions along with the larger grounds in Australia,” added Bailey.

World Cup squad assembled! Here’s the 15 who will represent our national men’s team at the upcoming T20 World Cup… https://t.co/X8xaS1fXGr

— Cricket Australia (@CricketAus) 1661987297000

The Aaron Finch-captained squad will travel to India for three T20 Internationals in September before returning home to play the West Indies, England and India leading into the World Cup.
Key batsman David Warner will miss the Indian tour as part of a “managed period of preparation”, Cricket Australia said, while Cameron Green will join the squad for the Indian T20 Series.
Australia T20 World Cup squad:
Aaron Finch (c), David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, Tim David, Josh Inglis, Ashton Agar, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood, Kane Richardson

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

PM Modi pays tributes to Puli Thevar

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:04:11 +0000

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid tributes to Puli Thevar, an 18th century Tamil warrior who fought against the British, on his birth anniversary.

His valour and determination give inspiration to countless people, the prime minister said.
Modi tweeted, “I pay homage to the brave Puli Thevar on his birth anniversary. His valour and determination give inspiration to countless people. He was at the forefront of resisting imperialism. He always fought for the people.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

History’s bookends: Putin reversed many Gorbachev reforms

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:02:47 +0000

NEW YORK: One stood for freedom, openness, peace and closer ties with the outside world. The other is jailing critics, muzzling journalists, pushing his country deeper into isolation and waging Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.
Such are history’s bookends between Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s last leader, and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president.
In many ways, Gorbachev, who died Tuesday, unwittingly enabled Putin. The forces Gorbachev unleashed spun out of control, led to his downfall and the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Since coming to power in 1999, Putin has been taking a hard line that resulted in a near-complete reversal of Gorbachev’s reforms.
When Gorbachev came to power as Soviet leader in 1985, he was younger and more vibrant than his predecessors. He broke with the past by moving away from a police state, embracing freedom of the press, ending his country’s war in Afghanistan and letting go of Eastern European countries that had been locked in Moscow’s communist orbit. He ended the isolation that had gripped the USSR since its founding.
It was an exciting, hopeful time for Soviet citizens and the world. Gorbachev brought the promise of a brighter future.
He believed in integration with the West, multi-lateralism and globalism to solve the world’s problems, including ending armed conflicts and reducing the danger of nuclear weapons.
In marked contrast, Putin’s worldview holds that the West is an “empire of lies,” and democracy is chaotic, uncontrolled and dangerous. While mostly refraining from direct criticism, Putin implies that Gorbachev sold out to the West.
Returning to a communist-style mindset, Putin believes the West is imperialistic and arrogant, trying to impose its liberal values and policies on Russia and using the country as a scapegoat for its own problems.
He accuses Western leaders of trying to restart the Cold War and restrain Russia’s development. He seeks a world order with Russia on equal footing with the United States and other major powers, and in some respects is trying to rebuild an empire.
Gorbachev sometimes bowed to Western pressure. Two years after U.S. President Ronald Reagan implored him to “tear down this wall” in a speech at the Berlin Wall, Gorbachev did so, indirectly, by not intervening in populist anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe. The dropping of the Iron Curtain and end of the Cold War followed.
At home, Gorbachev introduced two sweeping and dramatic policies — “glasnost” or openness — and “perestroika,” a restructuring of Soviet society. Previously taboo subjects could now be discussed, in literature, the news media and society in general. He undertook economic reforms to allow private enterprise, moving away from a state-run economy.
He also loosened up on the dreaded police state, freed political prisoners such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, and ended the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power. Freer foreign travel, emigration and religious observances were also part of the mix.
Putin has veered away from Gorbachev’s changes. He focused on restoring order and rebuilding the police state. An increasingly severe crackdown on dissent has involved jailing critics, branding them traitors and extremists, including for merely calling the “special military operation” in Ukraine a war. He sees some critics as foreign-funded collaborators of Russia’s enemies.
In his quest for control, he’s shut down independent news organizations and banned human rights and humanitarian organizations. He demands complete loyalty to the state and emphasizes traditional Russian family, religious and nationalistic tenets.
Gorbachev’s leadership was not without failures. His more liberal policies were uneven, such as a bloody 1991 Soviet crackdown on the independence movement in the Soviet Baltic republic of Lithuania and the attempted early coverup of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster.
By 1988, he realized that trying to hide bad events wasn’t working, so when a massive earthquake hit Armenia in December 1988, he opened the borders to emergency international help and allowed transparency about the destruction.
After nearly a decade of fighting in Afghanistan, Gorbachev ordered the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, entered into multiple arms-control and disarmament agreements with the United States and other countries, and helped end the Cold War. For those efforts, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
But at home, Gorbachev’s economic reforms didn’t go well. Freeing industries from state control and allowing private enterprise too quickly and haphazardly created widespread shortages of food and consumer goods, worsened corruption and spawned a class of oligarchs.
The burgeoning independence movements in Soviet republics and other problems so angered Communist Party hard-liners that they attempted a coup against him in August 1991, further weakening his grip on power and leading to his resignation four months later.
In the end, many in Russia felt Gorbachev had left them with broken promises, dashed hopes and a weakened, humiliated country.
One who felt that way was Putin. For him, much of what Gorbachev did was a mistake. The biggest was the Soviet Union’s collapse, what Putin called “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
The Soviet Union was disrespected, defeated and broken into pieces – 15 countries. For Putin, it was also personal, because as a KGB officer stationed in East Germany, he watched in horror as massive crowds staged the popular uprising that led to the removal of the Berlin Wall and Germany’s reunification, at one point besieging his KGB office in Dresden.
To this day, Putin’s perceptions about threats to his country and popular revolutions color his foreign policy and his deep mistrust of the West. They underpin his decision to invade Ukraine on Feb. 24.
As one justification for the war, he cites what he believes was a broken U.S. promise to Gorbachev – a supposed 1990 pledge that NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe. U.S. officials have denied making such a pledge, but Putin believes NATO’s expansion, and specifically the prospect of neighboring Ukraine joining the alliance, pose an existential threat to Russia.
Critics allege that Putin distorts the facts and ignores local sentiments to claim Ukrainians want to be liberated from the Kyiv government and align with Moscow.
He has also embarked on a massive effort to modernize and expand Russia’s military might, moving away from arms-control accords that Gorbachev agreed to.
Putin’s war in Ukraine, his human rights violations and the 2014 annexation of Crimea have drawn massive international sanctions that are reversing the cultural and economic ties that Gorbachev fostered. But for a few allies, Russia is isolated.
While one might expect Gorbachev to have been more critical of Putin, he did condemn NATO’s eastward expansion and said the West bungled the chance offered by the Cold War’s end. He even supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
But in many other ways, the historic bookends between the two leaders are far apart.
Before Gorbachev rose to power, Reagan in 1983 famously branded Russia an “evil empire.” Five years later, he recanted the description at a summit with the Soviet leader.
Fast forward to today, when the current US president, Joe Biden, has called Putin a “killer,” a “butcher” and a “war criminal” who “cannot remain in power.”
The Cold War that Gorbachev helped end is back.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Antibodies that may lead to next-gen vaccines for all Covid strains found

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 14:58:47 +0000

LOS ANGELES: Scientists have identified antibodies that are effective against many different SARS-CoV-2 variants, an advance that paves the way for next-generation vaccines which could protect from different Covid-19 strains. The antibodies identified in monkeys by a team at The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, US are also effective against other SARS viruses like SARS-CoV-1, the highly lethal virus that caused an outbreak in 2003.
The results show that certain animals are more able to make these types of “pan-SARS virus” antibodies than humans, giving scientists clues as to how to make better vaccines.
The findings, published on Thursday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, reveal the antibody structures that produce this more comprehensive immune response.
The researchers found these neutralising antibodies recognise a viral region in the spike protein — which the virus uses to enter and infect the cells — that is relatively more conserved.
This means that the region is present across many different SARS viruses, and is therefore less likely to mutate over time, they said.
The finding may help develop next-generation vaccines that can offer additional protection against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and other SARS-related viruses, according to the researchers.
“If we can design vaccines that elicit the similar broad responses that we have seen in this study, these treatments could enable broader protection against the virus and variants of concern,” said study senior author Raiees Andrabi, an investigator at The Scripps Research Institute.
The researchers immunised rhesus macaque monkeys with the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Two shots were administered, resembling a similar strategy used with currently available vaccines in humans.
However, unlike the vaccines, the macaques were shown to have a broad neutralising antibody response against the virus, including variants such as Omicron.
The scientists found these antibodies recognise a conserved region on the edge of the site where the spike protein binds to host cells, called the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor binding site.
This is different than the region where the majority of human antibodies target, which overlaps more with the ACE2 receptor binding site and is more variable to change, they said.
“The antibody structures reveal an important area common to multiple SARS-related viruses,” said study co-senior author Ian Wilson.
“This region to date has rarely been seen to be targeted by human antibodies and suggests additional strategies that can be used to coax our immune system into recognising this particular region of the virus,” Wilson said.
The researchers notes that the macaque’s gene coding for these broad neutralising antibodies — known as IGHV3-73 — is not the same in humans.
The dominant immune response in humans is related to the IGHV3-53 gene, which produces a potent but much narrower neutralising antibody response, they said.
However, the scientists said this finding paves the way to rationally design and engineer vaccines or vaccine-adjuvant combinations that elicit more broad protection against SARS-CoV-2 and its many variants.
“According to our study, the macaques have an antibody gene that offers them more protection against SARS viruses,” said Dennis Burton, a co-senior author of the study.
“This observation teaches us that studying the effect of a vaccine in monkeys can only take us so far but also reveals a new target for our vaccine efforts that we might be able to exploit by advanced protein design strategies,” Burton added.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

‘Extreme heat belt’ to cover middle of US by 2053: Report

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 14:28:32 +0000

WASHINGTON: An area of intensely warm weather — a so-called “extreme heat belt” — with at least one day per year in which the heat index hits 125 Fahrenheit (52C), is expected to cover a US region home to more than 100 million people by the year 2053, according to a new study.
The research, carried out by nonprofit First Street Foundation, used a peer-reviewed model built with public and third-party data to estimate heat risk at what they called a “hyper-local” scale of 30 square meters.
First Street Foundation’s mission is to make climate risk modeling accessible to the public, government and industry representatives, such as real estate investors and insurers.
A key finding from the study was that heat exceeding the threshold of the National Weather Service’s highest category — called “Extreme Danger,” or above 125F — was expected to impact 8.1 million people in 2023 and grow to 107 million people in 2053, a 13-fold increase.
This would encompass a geographic region stretching from northern Texas and Louisiana to Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin — inland areas far from the more temperate weather often seen near the coasts.
Heat index, also known as the apparent temperature, is what the outside temperature really feels like to the human body when relative humidity is combined with air temperature.
To create their model, the research team examined satellite-derived land surface temperatures and air temperatures between 2014 and 2020, to help understand the exact relationship between the two measurements.
This information was further studied by factoring in elevation, how water is absorbed in the area, the distance to surface water and the distance to a coast.
The model was then scaled to future climate conditions, using a “middle of the road” scenario envisaged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in which carbon dioxide levels start falling by mid-century, but do not reach net zero by 2100.
Beyond “Extreme Danger” days, areas across the whole country are expected to experience hotter temperatures, with varying degrees of resilience.
“These increases in local temperatures result in significant implications for communities that are not acclimated to warmer weather relative to their normal climate,” the report said.
For example, a 10 percent temperature increase in the northeastern state of Maine may be as dangerous as a 10 percent increase in the southwestern state of Texas, despite the higher absolute temperatures seen in Texas.
The biggest predicted shift in local temperature occurred in Miami-Dade County, Florida, which currently sees seven days per year at its hottest temperature of 103 Fahrenheit. By 2053, that number is expected to increase to 34 days at 103 degrees.
And the increase in air conditioning use that is likely to result from such temperature spikes will strain energy grids, the report warned, leading to more frequent, longer lasting brownouts.

News & Photo Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Jharkhand crisis: Selective leaks from governor’s office creating chaos, say UPA MLAs

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 14:17:14 +0000

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NEW DELHI: A delegation of JMM and Congress MLAs met Jharkhand governor Ramesh Bais on Thursday amid uncertainty over chief minister Hemant Soren‘s political future in the state.
The meeting comes days after the Election Commission recommended Soren’s disqualification in a letter to the governor over an office-for-profit case.
The group of MLAs requested the governor to declare his opinion on the matter, saying that speculations on Soren’s fate has encouraged the destablisation of a democratically-elected government.
The legislators also expressed “shock” over the “selective leaks” from the governor’s office on Soren’s disqualification as a legislator.
The delegation, in its representation to Bais, said such leaks created “chaos, confusion and uncertainty”.
It asserted that disqualification of the CM as MLA will not affect the government, as the ruling JMM-Congress-RJD coalition enjoys an absolute majority in the 81-member House.
In the Jharkhand assembly, the ruling alliance has 30 MLAs of JMM, 18 MLAs of Congress and one MLA of RJD.
Following a petition by the BJP seeking Soren’s disqualification from the assembly, the Election Commission sent its decision to Bais on August 25.
Though the EC’s decision is not yet made official, there was a buzz that the poll panel has recommended the chief minister’s disqualification as an MLA.
The Raj Bhavan is yet to announce anything on this matter. This has led to growing uncertainty among the ruling coalition about Soren’s future.
(With inputs from agencies)

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Russia launches war games with China amid tensions with US

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 14:15:58 +0000

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MOSCOW: Russia on Thursday launched weeklong war games involving forces from China and other nations in a show of growing defence cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, as they both face tensions with the United States.
The maneuvers are also intended to demonstrate that Moscow has sufficient military might for massive drills even as its troops are engaged in military action in Ukraine.
The Russian Defence Ministry said that the Vostok 2022 (East 2022) exercise will be held until September 7 at seven firing ranges in Russia’s Far East and the Sea of Japan and involve more than 50,000 troops and over 5,000 weapons units, including 140 aircraft and 60 warships.
Russian General Staff chief, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, will personally oversee the drills involving troops from several ex-Soviet nations, China, India, Laos, Mongolia, Nicaragua and Syria.
The Defence Ministry noted that as part of the maneuvers, the Russian and Chinese navies in the Sea of Japan will “practice joint action to protect sea communications, areas of marine economic activity and support for ground troops in littoral areas.”
Beijing sent more than 2,000 troops along with more than 300 military vehicles, 21 combat aircraft and three warships to take part in the drills, Chinese news reports said.
China’s Global Times newspaper noted that the maneuvers marked the first time that China has sent forces from three branches of its military to take part in a single Russian drill, in what it described as a show of the breadth and depth of China-Russia military cooperation and mutual trust.
The drills showcase increasing defense ties between Moscow and Beijing, which have grown stronger since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his troops into Ukraine on February 24.
China has pointedly refused to criticize Russia’s actions, blaming the US and NATO for provoking Moscow, and has blasted the punishing sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Russia, in turn, has strongly backed China amid the tensions with the US that followed a recent visit to Taiwan by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Putin has drawn parallels between US support for Ukraine and Pelosi’s trip, describing them both as part of alleged efforts by Washington to foment global instability.
Alexander Gabuyev, a political analyst who closely follows Russia-China ties, noted that “it’s very important for Beijing to show to the US that it has levers to pressure America and its global interests.”
“The joint maneuvers with Moscow, including the naval drills, are intended to signal that if the pressure on Beijing continues it will have no other choice but to strengthen the military partnership with Russia,” Gabuyev said.
“It will have a direct impact on the interests of the US and its allies, including Japan.”
He noted that the Kremlin, for its part, wants to show that the country’s military is powerful enough to flex its muscle elsewhere despite the campaign in Ukraine.
“The Russian leadership demonstrates that everything goes according to plan and the country and its military have resources to conduct the maneuvers along with the special military operation,” Gabuyev said.
The exercise continues a series of joint war games by Russia and China in recent years, including naval drills and patrols by long-range bombers over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea. Last year, Russian troops for the first time deployed to Chinese territory for joint maneuvers.
China’s participation in the drills “aims to deepen pragmatic and friendly cooperation between the militaries of the participating countries, enhance the level of strategic cooperation among all participating parties, and enhance the ability to jointly respond to various security threats,” Chinese Defence Ministry spokesperson Col. Tan Kefei said last week.
Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have developed strong personal ties to bolster a “strategic partnership” between the former Communist rivals as they both are locked in rivalry with the US.
Even though Moscow and Beijing in the past rejected the possibility of forging a military alliance, Putin has said that such a prospect can’t be ruled out. He also has noted that Russia has been sharing highly sensitive military technologies with China that helped significantly bolster its defense capability.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Danube drought reveals parts of hidden World War II history

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 17:16:29 +0000

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PRAHOVO: The worst drought in Europe in decades hasn’t only scorched farmland and hampered river traffic, it also has exposed a part of almost forgotten World War II history: The hulks of dozens of World War II German battleships have emerged from the Danube River as its water levels have dropped.
In the middle of the mighty river separating Serbia and Romania near the Serbian port of Prahovo, a rusty hull, a broken mast where the swastika flag used to fly, an upper deck where a command bridge used to be, a barrel that could have been holding fuel — or even explosive materials — lean on a pebblestone dune that has emerged from the water.
The ships, some still laden with munition, belonged to Nazi Germany’s Black Sea fleet that was deliberately sunk by the Germans as they retreated from Romania as Soviet forces advanced.
Historians say up to 200 German warships were scuttled in September 1944 near Prahovo in the Danube gorge known as The Iron Gate on the orders of the fleet’s commander as they came under heavy fire from the Soviets. The idea behind the deliberate sinking was to at least slow down the Soviet advance in the Balkans. But it didn’t help as Nazi Germany surrendered months later, in May 1945.
The unusually hot weather across Europe this summer was linked by scientists to global warming and other factors. The dropping water levels created dangerous conditions for shipping on many rivers on the continent, including the Danube, Europe’s second-longest river that flows through 10 nations. Authorities in Serbia have used dredging to keep vessels moving.
The wrecks appearing from the depths are an impressive sight, but they have caused decades of trouble for those using the river, and now the Serbian government, with European Union support, is planning to do something about them.
Some of the wrecks were removed from the river by the Communist Yugoslav authorities right after the war. But most of them remained, hampering shipping, especially in summer when water levels are low. For years there were plans to take the ships out of the muddy waters, but the operation was considered too risky because of the explosives they carried and there were no funds to do it until recently.
Now, the European Union and the European Investment Bank have agreed to provide loans and grants to finance the operation to remove some of the vessels near Prahovo in order to improve the traffic capacity of the Danube. The total cost of the operation is estimated at 30 million euros ($30 million), of which about 16 million are grants.
“These vessels have been sunk and they have been lying on the river bed ever since,” the EU ambassador to Serbia, Emanuele Giaufret, said during a recent trip to the wreckage site. “And this is a problem. It’s a problem for the traffic on the Danube, it restricts the capacity to move, it’s a hazard because certain vessels still contain unexploded ordnance.”
Accompanying Giaufret was Alessandro Bragonzi, the head of the European Investment Bank in the Western Balkans. He said the project consists of the removal of 21 sunken vessels.
“It has been estimated that more vessels are underwater, up to 40, but those that are currently impeding the fairway conditions of the Danube, especially during periods of low water level, are 21,” Bragonzi said.
Experts say the salvage operation will consist of removing the explosive materials from the sunken vessels and then destroying the wrecks, rather than dragging the ships out of the river.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

‘This ain’t India’: Indian-American racially abused by compatriot in California

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 16:36:30 +0000

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NEW YORK: An Indian-American man has been racially abused by a compatriot in the US state of California who hurled racist slurs that he is a “dirty Hindu” and a “disgusting dog,” days after another hate crime was reported against four women from the community in Texas. Krishnan Jayaraman was verbally attacked by 37-year-old Singh Tejinder in the Taco Bell at Grimmer Boulevard in Fremont, California on August 21, NBC News reported on Wednesday.
Tejinder, of Union City, was charged on Monday with a hate crime in violation of civil rights, assault and disturbing the peace by offensive language, the Fremont Police Department said.
Tejinder was listed in charging documents as “Asian/Indian,” the report said.
Jayaraman recorded the tirade, which lasted over eight minutes, on his phone, capturing the moment Tejinder told him: “You’re disgusting, dog. You look nasty. Don’t come out in public like this again.”
In the foul-mouthed rant, Tejinder called him a “dirty Hindu,” repeatedly used the N-word, insinuated that Jayaraman didn’t eat meat and yelled “beef!” in his face. He appeared to spit at Jayaraman twice in the video.
At one point Tejinder was seen saying: “…this ain’t India! You…India up, and now you’re…America up,” the report said.
Jayaraman said he was frightened by the incident and was even more upset to learn later that the perpetrator was also Indian.
“I was scared, to be honest with you. I was infuriated on the one hand, but I was scared that what if this guy becomes too belligerent and then comes after me?” he told NBC Bay Area.
“I’m not here to pick a fight with you,” Jayaraman said. “What do you want? He said you know you Hindus are a shame, disgusting. Then he spat on me,” KTLA.com website reported.
Jayaraman says that’s when he and a restaurant employee called Fremont police. He says the man continued yelling for more than eight minutes.
Fremont police are still investigating the incident.
Jayaraman’s video ended with Fremont police officers arriving, abc7news.com reported.
The police chief later addressed the community on social media.
Police Chief Sean Washington wrote: “We take hate incidents and hate crimes seriously, and understand the significant impact they have on our community. These incidents are despicable. We are here to protect all community members, regardless of their gender, race, nationality, religion, and other differences.”
“We would like to urge the community to be respectful of each other and to immediately report any circumstances such as this that, upon investigation, may rise to the level of a crime. In the event of a hate crime, we will devote all available resources to follow up and investigate. Fremont is one of the nation’s most diverse communities, and we are thankful for the contributions of community members from different cultures and backgrounds,” the statement said.
On Friday, four Indian-American women were racially abused and smacked by a Mexican-American woman in the US state of Texas who hurled racist slurs at them that they are “ruining” America and should “go back to India”.
The incident took place on Wednesday night in a parking lot in Dallas, Texas. The woman, identified as Esmeralda Upton, has been arrested.
The incident has shocked the Indian-American community across the country.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Congress president’s election mired in controversy as leaders question voters’ list

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 14:58:00 +0000

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NEW DELHI: The election to the Congress president’s post is getting mired in one controversy or the other with each passing day. In the latest row, senior party leaders have questioned the constitutionality of the voters’ list.
After veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s resignation on August 26 and the continuous frontal attack on party leader Rahul Gandhi since then, a couple of senior leaders of the organisation have raised questions over the very veracity of the electoral roll for the president’s election scheduled to be held on October 17.
Two Congress Lok Sabha MPs – Manish Tewari from Sri Anandpur Sahib in Punjab and Karti Chidambaram from Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu – on Wednesday alleged that the party’s presidential election could not be held in a free and fair manner without a transparent and well-defined electoral roll.
In a series of four tweets, Tewari, a grassroots leader, asked a few questions from Madhusudan Mistry, the chairperson of Congress’s central election authority (CEA) which is overseeing the election of party president.
Tewari said, “With great respect @MD_Mistry ji, how can there be a fair and free election without a publicly available electoral roll? Essence of a fair and free process is (that) names and addresses of electors must be published on @INCIndia website in a transparent manner. You are quoted as saying, ‘the list is not made public but if a member of our party wants to check, they can check at the PCC office. And, of course, it will be given to the candidates once they file their nomination papers’.”
Tewari told Mistry that the party’s highest decision-making body Congress Working Committee (CWC) has announced the schedule of party president’s election, not to 28 pradesh Congress committees (PCCs) and 8 territorial Congress committees (TCCs).
He asked, “Why should someone have to go to every PCC office in the country to find out who the electors are? This does not happen in a club election also with great respect.”
The former Union minister appealed to Mistry to make the voters’ list public. “In the interests of fairness and transparency, I urge your good self to publish the entire list of electors on @INCIndia website. How can someone consider running if he/ she does not know who electors are? If someone has to file his/ her nomination and gets it proposed by 10 Congresspersons, as is the requirement, CEA can reject it (by) saying they are not valid electors,” Tewari added.
Tewari is a member of G-23, a group of 23 Congress leaders who had written a letter to Sonia Gandhi in 2020 demanding internal reforms in the party. He has been demanding transparency, accessibility and an overhaul of the manner in which the party’s top leadership functions.
Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union finance minister P Chidambaram, also questioned the validity of the voters’ list.
In a tweet, Karti said, “Every election needs a well-defined and clear electoral college. The process of forming the electoral college must also be clear, well defined and transparent. An ad hoc electoral college is no electoral college.”
In another tweet, he said, “Reformists are not Rebels.”

Reformists are not Rebels.

— Karti P Chidambaram (@KartiPC) 1661923321000

Replying to other tweets, Karti said, “Can anyone tell the world who are all eligible to vote and on what basis they became eligible?… Absolutely we must have primaries in every constituency, but for that we need a defined and transparent members list. Today we claim we have membership numbers which no one has ever verified.”
Tewari agreed with Karti. Tagging the latter’s tweet, he said, “My colleague in Parliament @KartiPC is spot on. For any election to be kosher, the electoral college must be constitutionally constituted. I read in the papers @AnandSharmaINC had articulated this widely shared concern in the CWC and he even publicly confirmed that he had raised it.”

MyColleague in Parliament @KartiPC is spot on. For any election to be kosher the electoral college must be constitu… https://t.co/EXb7ASslli

— Manish Tewari (@ManishTewari) 1661925098000

With questions being raised about the constitutionality of the voters’ list, the election of the president may itself become controversial.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

‘Burning with pain’: Pakistan floods threaten major health crisis

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 08:49:36 +0000

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SUKKUR: At a charity clinic in a southern Pakistani village, dozens of people affected by relentless rains and floods crowd around the door waiting to talk to a volunteer doctor.
The village of Bhambro is in a poor district of Sindh province, hard-hit by record floods that have destroyed more than a million homes and damaged critical infrastructure including health facilities across the country.
Bhambro is surrounded by vast stretches of flooded farmland, its streets full of mud and strewn with debris and manure — conditions ripe for outbreaks of malaria, cholera and skin diseases such as scabies.
“Skin diseases are the main problem here because of dirty, stagnant water and unhygienic conditions,” said Sajjad Memon, one of the doctors at the clinic, which is run by the charity Alkhidmat Foundation.
He used the flashlight on his mobile phone to examine patients, who were mostly reporting scabs and rashes on Tuesday.
Many had made their way to the clinic walking barefoot through filthy floodwater and mud.
“My child’s foot is burning with pain. My feet too,” said Azra Bhambro, a 23-year-old woman who had come to the clinic for help.
Abdul Aziz, a doctor in charge of Alkhidmat’s clinics in the area, told AFP that cases of scabies and fungal infections were on the rise.
Scabies outbreaks are common in crowded places with tropical conditions — such as flood relief camps and shelters — and can lead to severe itching and rashes, according to the World Health Organization.
Memon told AFP that many of the patients at the clinic could not afford to purchase shoes.
The millions of people affected by the floods face major health hazards including potentially deadly diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, the WHO warned in a statement Tuesday.
Sindh province, in Pakistan‘s south, has been hit particularly hard, with vast swathes of land under water and many villagers forced to head to large cities for shelter, food aid and medical assistance.
The health threat is even greater in areas such as Bhambro, where health services were already limited, and for the tens of thousands who are taking shelter in crowded relief camps.
“Ongoing disease outbreaks in Pakistan, including acute watery diarrhoea, dengue fever, malaria, polio, and Covid-19 are being further aggravated, particularly in camps and where water and sanitation facilities have been damaged,” the WHO said.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Long way to go before India reverses pre-Covid ‘Modi slowdown’: Congress

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 07:35:00 +0000

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the release of GDP numbers for the April-June quarter, the Congress on Wednesday said the figure could show a jump and turn out to be a headline grabber but the real growth is lower than in 2018.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said there is still a long way to go before India reverses the pre-Covid “Modi slowdown”.
“Jumla Alert: Apr-Jun 2022 quarterly GDP figure later today could show a jump from a year ago. This headline-grabbing number will be due to low-base effect,” the Congress general secretary said on Twitter.
“Real GDP in Apr-Jun 2021 was lower than in Apr-Jun 2018! A long way to go before we reverse the pre-Covid Modi slowdown,” Ramesh also said.
The GDP numbers for the April-June quarter of 2022-23 are likely to be released on Wednesday by the government.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Mikhail Gorbachev ended Cold War but presided over Soviet collapse

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 02:47:50 +0000

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LONDON: Lauded in the West as the man who helped bring down the Berlin Wall and end the Cold War without bloodshed, Mikhail Gorbachev was widely despised at home as the gravedigger of the communist Soviet Union.
The former Soviet president, who died on Tuesday aged 91, set out to revitalise the sclerotic Communist system through democratic and economic reform; it was never his intention to abolish it.
But he unleashed forces beyond his control, and found himself occupying a shrinking middle ground between diehards intent on preserving centralised power and separatists set on dismantling it.
In August 1991 he survived a shambolic coup by hardliners that fell apart after three days – but his authority had been fatally undermined. Four months later his great rival, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, engineered the break-up of the Soviet Union and Gorbachev found himself out of a job.
“In this sense, I feel that Gorbachev is a tragic figure, similar in many ways to Shakespeare’s King Lear,” said Valery Solovei, close to Gorbachev’s inner circle in the 1980s and an ally after his fall. “This is a man who ruled a superpower – but by the end of his reign, the state had disappeared.”
After decades of Cold War tension and confrontation, Gorbachev struck nuclear arms deals with the United States and brought the Soviet Union closer to the West than at any point since World War Two.
But he saw that legacy destroyed in the final months of his long life, as President Vladimir Putin‘s invasion of Ukraine brought Western sanctions crashing down on Moscow, and politicians in both Russia and the West began to speak openly of a new Cold War – and the risk of a nuclear World War Three.
Break with the past
The ex-farm worker with the rolling south Russian accent and distinctive port-wine birthmark on his head gave notice of his bold ambition soon after winning a Kremlin power struggle in 1985, at the age of 54.
Television broadcasts showed him besieged by workers in factories and farms, allowing them to vent their frustrations with Soviet life and making the case for radical change.
It marked a dramatic break with the cabal of old men he succeeded – remote, intolerant of dissent, their chests groaning with medals, dogmatic to the grave. Three ailing Soviet leaders had died in the previous 2-1/2 years.
Gorbachev inherited a land of inefficient farms and decaying factories, a state-run economy he believed could be saved only by the open, honest criticism that had led so often in the past to prison or labour camp. It was a gamble. Many wished him ill.
With his clever, elegant wife Raisa at his side, Gorbachev at first enjoyed massive popular support.
“My policy was open and sincere, a policy aimed at using democracy and not spilling blood,” he told Reuters in 2009. “But this cost me very dear, I can tell you that.”
His policies of “glasnost” (free speech) and “perestroika” (restructuring) unleashed a surge of public debate arguably unprecedented in Russian history.
Moscow squares seethed with impromptu discussions, censorship all but evaporated, and even the sacred Communist Party was forced to confront its Stalinist crimes.
Chornobyl disaster
Glasnost faced a dramatic test in April 1986, when a nuclear power station exploded in Chornobyl, Ukraine, and authorities tried at first to hush up the disaster. Gorbachev pressed on, describing the tragedy as a symptom of a rotten and secretive system.
In December of that year he ordered a telephone to be installed in the flat of dissident Andrei Sakharov, exiled in the city of Gorky, and the next day phoned him to personally invite him back to Moscow. The pace of change was, for many, dizzying.
The West quickly warmed to Gorbachev, who had enjoyed a meteoric rise through regional party ranks to the post of General Secretary. He was, in the words of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, “a man we can do business with”. The term “Gorbymania” entered the lexicon, a measure of the adulation he inspired on foreign trips.
Gorbachev struck up a warm personal rapport with Ronald Reagan, the hawkish US president who had called the Soviet Union “the evil empire”, and with him negotiated a landmark deal in 1987 to scrap intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
In 1989, he pulled Soviet troops out of Afghanistan, ending a war that had killed tens of thousands and soured relations with Washington.
Later that year, as pro-democracy protests swept across the Communist states of Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, the world held its breath.
With hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops stationed across Eastern Europe, would Moscow turn its tanks on the demonstrators, as it had in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968?
Gorbachev was under pressure from many to err on the side of force. That he did not may have been his greatest historic contribution – one that was recognised in 1990 with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Reflecting years later, Gorbachev said the cost of trying to prevent the fall of the Berlin Wall would have been too high.
“If the Soviet Union had wished, there would have been nothing of the sort and no German unification. But what would have happened? A catastrophe or World War Three.”
August coup
At home, though, problems mounted.
The glasnost years saw the rise of regional tensions, often rooted in the repressions and ethnic deportations of the Stalin era. The Baltic states pushed for independence and there was trouble also in Georgia, and between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, a leading reformist ally, resigned dramatically in December 1990, warning that hardliners were in the ascendant and “a dictatorship is approaching”.
The following month, Soviet troops killed 14 people at Lithuania’s main TV tower in an attack that Gorbachev denied ordering. In Latvia, five demonstrators were killed by Soviet special forces.
In March 1991, a referendum produced an overwhelming majority for preserving the Soviet Union as “a renewed “federation of equal sovereign republics”, but six of the 15 republics boycotted the vote.
In the summer, the hardliners struck, scenting weakness in a man now abandoned by many liberal allies. Six years after entering the Kremlin, Gorbachev and Raisa sat imprisoned at their Crimean holiday home on the Black Sea, their telephone lines cut, a warship anchored offshore.
The “August coup” was mounted by a so-called Emergency Committee including the KGB chief, prime minister, defence minister and vice president. They feared a complete collapse of the Communist system and sought to prevent power from draining away from the centre to the republics, of which the biggest and most powerful was Yeltsin’s Russia.
The putschists ultimately failed, assuming wrongly that they could rely on the party, army and bureaucracy to obey orders as in the past. But it was no outright victory for Gorbachev.
Yeltsin’s moment
Instead it was the burly white-haired Yeltsin who seized the moment, standing atop a tank in central Moscow to rally thousands against the coup. When Gorbachev returned from Crimea, Yeltsin humiliated him in the Russian parliament, signing a decree banning the Russian Communist Party despite Gorbachev’s protestations.
In later years, Gorbachev dwelt on whether he could have averted the events that ultimately triggered the Soviet Union’s collapse, described by Putin as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.
Had he been reckless in leaving Moscow that hot August, as coup rumours swirled?
“I thought they would be idiots to take such a risk precisely at that moment, because it would sweep them away too,” he told the German magazine Der Spiegel on the 20th anniversary of the coup. “I’d become exhausted after all those years … But I shouldn’t have gone away. It was a mistake.”
Personal revenge may have mingled with politics when in late 1991, at a secluded country house, Yeltsin and the leaders of the republics of Ukraine and Belarus signed accords that abolished the Soviet Union and replaced it with a Commonwealth of Independent States.
On December 25, 1991, the red flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time and Gorbachev appeared on national television to announce his resignation.
Free elections, a free press, representative legislatures and a multi-party system had all become a reality under his watch, he said.
“We opened up to the world, renounced interference in other countries’ affairs and the use of troops beyond our borders, and were met with trust, solidarity and respect.”
But the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the first Communist state and a nuclear superpower that had sent the first man into space and cast its influence across the globe, was no more.
Child of Stalinism
Born into famine on March 2, 1931, in a hut in the village of Privolnoye in the southern region of Stavropol, Gorbachev was, like millions of Russians, baptised into the Russian Orthodox faith despite the official atheism of the Soviet era.
The arrests of family members in Josef Stalin’s 1930s purges gave Gorbachev a lifelong wariness of the abuse of power. But he embraced the party, working hard to secure a coveted place at Moscow State University.
He became a Central Committee member at 40 and a full Politburo member in 1979, thanks to the patronage of ideological puritan Yuri Andropov, the KGB secret police chief.
Andropov took power in 1982 on the death of Leonid Brezhnev, who had for 18 years led Moscow through a gentle decline that reformers branded the “era of stagnation”.
On his death 15 months later, Gorbachev was passed over for aged Brezhnev ally Konstantin Chernenko. Only when Chernenko died after barely a year in office did the younger man’s reforming ambitions win out.
That Gorbachev’s achievements were not appreciated at home should perhaps have been no surprise. Russia can deal harshly with reformers.
Hardliners accused him of destroying the planned economy and throwing aside seven decades of Communist achievements. To liberal critics, he talked too much, compromised too much, and balked at decisive reforms.
As Moscow’s control ebbed, ethnic tensions broke out that were to erupt into full-scale wars in places such as Chechnya, Georgia and Moldova after the Soviet Union collapsed.
Three decades later, some of those conflicts remain unresolved. Thousands were killed in late 2020 when war broke out again between ethnic Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
After the fall
With his Nobel prize in hand and his stellar reputation abroad, Gorbachev gradually settled into a second career. He made several attempts to found a social democratic party, opened a think-tank, the Gorbachev Foundation, and co-founded the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, critical of the Kremlin to this day.
In 1996, he put his popularity to the test by running for president. But Yeltsin won decisively, and Gorbachev secured a dismal 0.5% of the vote.
Increasingly frail in later years, Gorbachev spoke out to voice his concern at rising tensions between Russia and the United States, and warned against a return to the Cold War he had helped to end.
“We have to continue the course we mapped. We have to ban war once and for all. Most important is to get rid of nuclear weapons,” he said in 2018.
His tragedy was that in trying to redesign an ossified, monolithic structure, to preserve the Soviet Union and save the Communist system, he ended up presiding over the demise of both.
The world, however, would never be the same.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

‘38% of suicides in 2021 were by daily-wagers, self-employed’

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 01:33:15 +0000

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NEW DELHI: Daily wagers and the self-employed constituted nearly 38% of persons who died by suicide in 2021, according to NCRB. The share of these two categories of people in total number of suicide deaths has consistently increased since 2018 — from 32% to 35%, and from 36% to 38% — and even the actual number of such fatalities has gone up during these four years from 43,276 to 62,215.
The comparative study of the suicide data of 2018-2021 period shows there was a spike in the number of daily wage workers taking their own lives by 39% during this period — from 30,127 to 42,004. In the last two years, one in every four suicide victims was a daily wage earner. Data shows suicide by daily wage workers was maximum in Tamil Nadu and the three other states that reported high number of such fatalities were Maharashtra, MP and Telangana. If the data of suicide of daily wage workers is compared between 2014 and 2021, then the number of such deaths has more than doubled during these eight years.
So far as the suicide of self-employed persons were concerned, the comparison of the figures show that such fatalities have gone up from 13,149 in 2018 to 20,213 during 2021, an increase of nearly 54%. The category of self-employed persons include vendors and tradesmenAs per reports, the number of vendors dying by suicide has increased by nearly 40%, from 3,230 in 2018 to 4,532 during the last year. Similarly, the number of tradesmen (small businessmen) dying by suicide went up from 2,615 in 2018 to 3,699 in 2021. The main reasons for suicide across all categories across these years have been family problems, illness, love affairs and marriage-related issues.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Trump calls for revolt in FBI over raid on his home

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 20:46:26 +0000

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WASHINGTON: Former US President Donald Trump on Tuesday virtually called for a revolt in the FBI over the raid on his home in Florida to retrieve classified White House documents amid warning from a key political ally there would be “rioting in the streets” if he is prosecuted for the matter.
In what critics termed as an incendiary call on his social media platform Truth Social aimed at driving a wedge within the government, Trump suggested FBI agents who disagreed with the raid go “nuts” and “make America great again.”
“When are the great Agents, and others, in the FBI going to say ‘we aren’t going to take it anymore,’ much as they did when James Comey read off a list of all of Crooked Hillary Clinton’s crimes, only to say that no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute.,” Trump said.
“The wonderful people of the FBI went absolutely “nuts,” so Comey had to backtrack and do a FAKE INVESTIGATION in order to keep them at bay,” he continued. “The end result, we won in 2016 (and did MUCH better in 2020!). But now the ‘Left’ has lost their minds!!!”
A little later, he re-upped the message, exhorting, “FBI, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump’s call came hours after US Senator Lindsey Graham, one of his more ardent supporters, said there will be “rioting in the streets” if Trump is prosecuted. Graham later denied his remark constituted incitement or threat.
Trump essayed a similar double edged call against the Biden administration last week, prompting the Washington Post to editorially accuse him of “summoning the mob.”
A Trump lawyer reportedly delivered what it said was a “sinister” message to the Justice Department: “President Trump wants the Attorney General to know that he has been hearing from people all over the country about the raid. If there was one word to describe their mood, it is ‘angry.’ The heat is building up. The pressure is building up. Whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know.”
The paper compared Trump’s strategy to the “madman theeory of foreign policy” adopted by Richard Nixon when he directed aides to suggest to his counterparts overseas that they might not be able to control a volatile and reckless president.
“Now, Donald Trump and his defenders are using a version of that gambit to deter the Justice Department from prosecuting the former president, arguing that going after Trump would dangerously incite his already angry followers,” it said.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Imran Khan raises Rs 5 billion for Pak flood victims through international telethon

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 14:25:04 +0000

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ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan has raised Rs 5 billion through an international telethon for the people affected by the devastating floods in the country, according to a media report on Tuesday.
Khan, the Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said during the telethon held on Monday that the objective was to raise funds for the flood victims as no government alone could deal with such a catastrophe.
Earlier, the Pakistan government had launched an international appeal seeking funds for relief and rehabilitation for flood-hit people and restoration of damaged infrastructure.
“The entire country has been affected by this [flood]. As per the initial assessment, losses of over Rs1,000 billion were incurred due to floods and over 1,000 people have died so far,” Khan was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune newspaper.
He said he received a lot of calls from Pakistanis, including expats who wanted to help the flood victims.
The former premier said people can donate to two bank accounts opened by the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) governments. The funds will be spent to help the flood-hit people across the country, he assured.
The country-wide death toll has touched 1,136 as of Monday, with over 1,634 injured and 33 million displaced, according to the latest data issued by the National Disaster Management Authority.
The Federal Minister of Planning and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal also said that the initial economic losses from floods in Pakistan could reach at least USD 10 billion, adding that the unprecedented floods caused by abnormal monsoon rains have washed away roads, crops, infrastructure, and bridges, affecting over 33 million people.
The monsoon season runs from July to September in Pakistan. This year monsoon and pre-monsoon rains broke the 30-year record in Pakistan and the NDMA data shows that the 30-year average rain was 130.8 millimeters but the rainfall in the 2022 season was 375.4 mm.
Iqbal added that it might take five years to rebuild and rehabilitate the nation of 200 million people, which will be facing an acute challenge of food shortage, according to the paper.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Explainer: Pakistan fatal flooding has hallmarks of warming

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 04:57:03 +0000

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The familiar ingredients of a warming world were in place: searing temperatures, hotter air holding more moisture, extreme weather getting wilder, melting glaciers, people living in harm’s way, and poverty. They combined in vulnerable Pakistan to create unrelenting rain and deadly flooding.
The flooding has all the hallmarks of a catastrophe juiced by climate change, but it is too early to formally assign blame to global warming, several scientists tell The Associated Press. It occurred in a country that did little to cause the warming, but keeps getting hit, just like the relentless rain.
“This year Pakistan has received the highest rainfall in at least three decades. So far this year the rain is running at more than 780% above average levels,” said Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute and a member of Pakistan’s Climate Change Council. “Extreme weather patterns are turning more frequent in the region and Pakistan is not a exception.”
Climate Minister Sherry Rehman said “it’s been a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions.”
Pakistan “is considered the eighth most vulnerable country to climate change,” said Moshin Hafeez, a Lahore-based climate scientist at the International Water Management Institute. Its rain, heat and melting glaciers are all climate change factors scientists warned repeatedly about.
While scientists point out these classic climate change fingerprints, they have not yet finished intricate calculations that compare what happened in Pakistan to what would happen in a world without warming. That study, expected in a few weeks, will formally determine how much climate change is a factor, if at all.
The “recent flood in Pakistan is actually an outcome of the climate catastrophe … that was looming very large,” said Anjal Prakash, a research director at India’s Bharti Institute of Public Policy. “The kind of incessant rainfall that has happened … has been unprecedented.”
Pakistan is used to monsoons and downpours, but “we do expect them spread out, usually over three months or two months,” said the country’s climate minister Rehman.
There are usually breaks, she said, and not as much rain — 37.5 centimeters (14.8 inches) falls in one day, nearly three times higher than the national average for the past three decades. “Neither is it so prolonged. … It’s been eight weeks and we are told we might see another downpour in September.”
“Clearly, it’s being juiced by climate change,” said Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts.
There’s been a 400% increase in average rainfall in areas like Baluchistan and Sindh, which led to the extreme flooding, Hafeez said. At least 20 dams have been breached.
The heat has been as relentless as the rain. In May, Pakistan consistently saw temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit). Scorching temperatures higher than 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) were recorded in places like Jacobabad and Dadu.
Warmer air holds more moisture — about 7% more per degree Celsius (4% per degree Fahrenheit) — and that eventually comes down, in this case in torrents.
Across the world “intense rain storms are getting more intense,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer. And he said mountains, like those in Pakistan, help wring extra moisture out as the clouds pass.
Instead of just swollen rivers flooding from extra rain, Pakistan is hit with another source of flash flooding: The extreme heat accelerates the long-term glacier melting then water speeds down from the Himalayas to Pakistan in a dangerous phenomena called glacial lake outburst floods.
“We have the largest number of glaciers outside the polar region, and this affects us,” climate minister Rehman said. “Instead of keeping their majesty and preserving them for posterity and nature. We are seeing them melt.”
Not all of the problem is climate change.
Pakistan saw similar flooding and devastation in 2010 that killed nearly 2,000 people. But the government didn’t implement plans to prevent future flooding by preventing construction and homes in flood prone areas and river beds, said Suleri of the country’s Climate Change Council.
The disaster is hitting a poor country that has contributed relatively little to the world’s climate problem, scientists and officials said. Since 1959, Pakistan has emitted about 0.4% of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, compared to 21.5% by the United States and 16.4% by China.
“Those countries that have developed or gotten rich on the back of fossil fuels, which are the problem really,” Rehman said. “They’re going to have to make a critical decision that the world is coming to a tipping point. We certainly have already reached that point because of our geographical location.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Amit Shah’s 1st Bihar visit since break with Nitish

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 04:39:40 +0000

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Union home minister Amit Shah will visit the Seemanchal region during his two-day visit to Bihar next month, his first after CM Nitish Kumar dumped BJP to form the grand alliance government with the support of RJD, Congress and others.
Aimed at rejuvenating BJP in the state, the Union minister’s visit will combine both official and political agenda. State BJP spokesman Prem Ranjan Patel said Shah will address a rally of party workers and BJP supporters from 11 districts of Seemanchal at Purnia on September 23.
The next day, he will hold an official meeting at Kishanganj concerning the Seemanchal districts. While seven districts of Purnia and Kosi divisions along or close to the Indo-Nepal border are strategically very sensitive from the point of national security, the four districts of Purnia, Katihar, Araria and Kishanganj have a significant chunk of Muslim population. These have been on the BJP’s political map for long owing to infiltration from Bangladesh. Recently, fears have also surfaced on the likely formation of sleeper cells of militant groups in the area.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Bianca Andreescu shrugs off wardrobe malfunction in US Open win

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 04:38:45 +0000

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NEW YORK: A hasty change of outfit worked wonders for Bianca Andreescu as she powered into the second round of the US Open on Monday.
The 22-year-old Canadian star, winner of the US Open crown in 2019, overcame Harmony Tan 6-0, 3-6, 6-1 to keep alive her dream of a second Grand Slam title.
However the victory was not without drama as a flustered Andreescu scrambled to change her clothing.
The former world number four arrived on court in a navy blue skirt, but with gusts of wind blowing her outfit around, she pleaded with the chair umpire to make a change.
“It’s not my fault, it’s Nike’s fault, this dress is so bad,” Andreescu could be heard complaining. “I need to go. This is so bad.”
She quickly returned to the court wearing shorts and a white top and set about navigating her way past Tan, who made headlines in June when she beat Serena Williams at Wimbledon.
Andreescu later explained her change of outfit after securing victory.
“It was just bothering me on some forehands. I just felt like it was kind of coming up a bit. Obviously the wind didn’t help,” she said.
She said she had pleaded with the umpire not to dock her a bathroom break — which he agreed to — and said she had not intended to criticise kit manufacturer Nike.
“He was very nice to say it was totally okay,” she said. “I could have definitely used a different choice of wording.
“So I apologize to anyone I disrespected. I love Nike and I hope I can be with them for the rest of my life.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Biden to ask Congress for approval of USD 1.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan: Reports

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 04:32:16 +0000

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WASHINGTON: The Biden administration plans to ask Congress to approve a USD 1.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan that includes hundreds of missiles for fighter jets and anti-ship systems, according to media reports.
Sputnik News Agency reported that the sale would include 60 anti-ship Harpoon missiles, 100 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, and a surveillance radar contract extension.
China carried out its largest war games around Taiwan after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the self-governed Island earlier this month. This trip was the highest-ranking US official to visit the island in 25 years.
China responded by conducting military drills for multiple days near the island after she left.
Taiwan had proposed a budget of USD 17.3 billion in defence for 2023, a 14.9 per cent increase from this year’s total allocation, weeks after China started its military drill around the self-ruled island country post the visit of US House Speaker.
Responding to reports about a potential US arms sale to Taiwan, the Chinese Embassy in Washington said that the US must immediately stop selling weapons to the island.
“The US side needs to immediately stop arms sales to and military contact with Taiwan, stop creating factors that could lead to tensions in the Taiwan Strait, and follow through on the US government statement of not supporting ‘Taiwan independence,'” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said, as per Sputnik News Agency.
The spokesperson also said US arms sales to Taiwan gravely violate the one-China principle and Beijing will continue to take resolute and strong measures to firmly defend Chinese sovereignty and security interests.
Meanwhile, two United States Navy warships entered the Taiwan Strait in the first such transit since China staged unprecedented military drills around the island.
On Sunday, the guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville were making their voyage “through waters where high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with the international law,” the US 7th Fleet in Japan said in a statement as quoted in CNN.
A 110-mile strait is a stretch of water that separates the democratic self-ruled island of Taiwan from mainland China.Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan despite China’s ruling Communist Party never having controlled the island — and considers the strait part of its “internal waters.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

‘It felt like my insides were crying’: China Covid curbs hit youth mental health

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 03:56:44 +0000

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HONG KONG: Zhang Meng had a breakdown last December. The 20-year-old found herself sobbing on the stairs of her dorm, driven to despair by repeated Covid lockdowns of her university campus in Beijing.
The lockdowns had meant she was mostly confined to her room and unable to meet up with friends. There were also strict curbs on when she could visit the canteen or take a shower. Describing herself as someone who craves in-person social interaction, Zhang said the restrictions had “removed the safety net that was holding me up and I felt like my whole being was falling down”.
That month, she was diagnosed with major depression and anxiety.
Yao, also 20 and who asked that his first name not be used, had his first breakdown in high school where he was a boarder, unable to understand why lockdown policies were so tough. He said that one day he had to take refuge in a school toilet, crying so hard “it felt like my insides were crying.”
In early 2021 while at university in Beijing, unable to shake that depression and also unhappy he had not taken the courses he wanted to for fear of upsetting his father, Yao attempted suicide.
China has employed some of the world’s harshest and most frequent lockdown measures in its determination to stamp out every Covid outbreak, arguing it saves lives and pointing to its low pandemic death toll of around 5,200 to date.
It’s an effort it has shown little sign of abandoning, but the policy’s impact on mental health alarms medical experts and as Zhang’s and Yao’s experiences have shown, it is already taking its toll.
“China’s lockdowns have had a huge human cost with the shadow of mental-ill health adversely affecting China’s culture and economy for years to come,” argues a June editorial in the British medical journal the Lancet.
In particular, experts fear for the mental health of teenagers and young adults, more vulnerable because of their age and lack of control over their lives, and who have to contend with far greater education stresses and economic pressures than earlier generations.
The number of young people affected is potentially huge. Some 220 million Chinese children and young people have been confined for prolonged periods due to Covid restrictions, the Education Ministry estimated in 2020. It did not respond to a Reuters request for an updated figure and comment on the topic.
Kids under pressure
The Covid curbs have sometimes forced young people into extreme situations.
During Shanghai’s two-month draconian lockdown this year, for instance, some 15 to 18-year-olds had to isolate by themselves at hotels as they were not allowed to return home.
“They had to cook for themselves and didn’t have people to talk to so it was actually very hard for them,” said Frank Feng, deputy principal at Lucton, an international school in Shanghai, told Reuters.
While data examining youth mental health in China and the impact of lockdowns and the pandemic is sparse, what there is is grim.
Around 20% of Chinese junior and senior high school students learning remotely during lockdowns have experienced suicidal ideation, according to a survey of 39,751 pupils conducted in April 2020 that was published in the U.S. journal Current Psychology in January. Suicidal ideation is sometimes described as when a person thinks they would be better off dead, though the person may not have at the time intent to commit suicide.
More broadly across age groups, searches for “psychological counselling” on Chinese search engine Baidu more than tripled in the first seven months of 2022 compared to the same period a year earlier.
For many teenagers, Covid lockdowns have come during critical exam years. If the stigma of being infected is not enough, desperation to avoid missing a life-changing exam due to either catching Covid or, much more commonly, being considered a close contact has many families isolating for months ahead of exam periods, teachers said.
Exacerbating that academic pressure are dismal job prospects. While overall unemployment stands at 5.4%, the rate for urban youth has soared to 19.9%, the highest level on record, as corporate hiring withers due to the pandemic and regulatory crackdowns on the tech and tutoring sectors.
Most students are also only children due to China’s 1980-2015 one-child policy and are conscious they will have to help support their parents in the future.
According to a Fudan University survey of around 4,500 young people this year, some 70% expressed varying degrees of anxiety.
The pandemic and lockdowns are also thought to be fuelling disaffection with the intense pressure to get ahead in life, symbolised by the so-called “lying flat” movement that last year gained huge social media traction in China as many young people embraced the idea of doing the bare minimum to get by.
A two-decade toll?
For its part, the Education Ministry has launched a raft of measures to improve mental health for students during the pandemic, including the introduction of mandatory mental health classes at colleges and a drive to ramp up the country’s number of school counsellors, therapists and psychiatrists.
But mental health has gained attention in China only in the last 20 years and the ministry’s efforts to install counsellors in schools are relatively new. Most schools would not have had one last year. Guidelines it published in June 2021 call for a ratio of at least 1 counsellor per 4,000 students nationwide.
State media have also taken up the topic.
A June 6 article in the China Daily that focused on the mental health impact of Covid curbs on vulnerable groups including teenagers quoted Lu Lin, president of Peking University’s Sixth Hospital, as saying that Covid’s “toll on people’s mental health could last over two decades”.
Data from early 2020 shows that a third of residents who isolated at home had experienced conditions such as depression, anxiety and insomnia, he said.
Lu estimated most would recover after an outbreak subsides but 10% would be unable to completely return to normal, noting he had teenage patients who had developed gaming addiction, had trouble sleeping and continued to be downcast and reluctant to go outdoors.
For Zhang, lockdowns and her subsequent depression have completely shattered her worldview. Once satisfied with her plans to study Chinese language and literature, disillusionment with how lockdowns have been managed has sparked interest in studying abroad.
“I was quite patriotic when I graduated from high school…this feeling is slowly disappearing. It’s not that I don’t trust the government anymore, it’s more of a feeling that the smell of masks and sanitiser has penetrated deep into my bones.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

2 die, 5 injured in Phoenix shooting rampage; suspect dead

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 03:10:42 +0000

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PHOENIX: Two people were killed and five injured — including two police officers — when a man armed with a semi-automatic rifle and wearing tactical gear began a seemingly random attack in Phoenix on Sunday night before killing himself, authorities said.
Phoenix police identified the man on Monday as 24-year-old Isaiah Steven Williams. They said he was found to have a single gunshot wound to the head, consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound although the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the cause of death.
It wasn’t immediately clear Monday where Williams lived and if he had a criminal record.
Police said Williams was wearing a ballistic vest with steel plates in the front and back, a ballistic helmet, a gas mask and knee pads and was armed with a semi-automatic rifle along with several incendiary devices and multiple magazines for the rifle.
“Kevlar helmet, tactical vest, high-powered rifle – this individual was set on doing damage to our community,” Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams said Monday.
Police said they received a call about shots fired in the north-central part of the city around 8:30 p.m. Sunday.
As officers arrived, a man immediately opened fire on several fully marked patrol SUVs. Four patrol cars were riddled with bullets. One officer was struck by a bullet in the shoulder and a second officer was hit by shrapnel in multiple places including the face.
Police said the officer wounded by shrapnel was able to get out of his car and return fire before other officers came to his aid to remove him from the area for medical treatment. Other officers began evacuating nearby businesses and bringing community members to a safe place.
The officer shot in the shoulder was hospitalized in stable condition, according to police.
Other officers began evacuating nearby businesses and bringing community members to a safe place.
Police said preliminary investigative information, along with surveillance video from nearby businesses, showed the suspect leaving a room at a motel in the area and begin shooting at random. The man was seen firing his rifle into the motel then turning the rifle on a car pulling into the parking lot.
A man and woman inside that car died on the scene from gunshot wounds, according to police who have not released the victims’ names yet.
The suspect also was seen throwing a Molotov cocktail at a restaurant window. It did not ignite. It was about that time that officers began to arrive and were fired upon.
Surveillance video shows the suspect making his way through the parking lot and then falling to the ground.
Three bystanders in various locations around the shooting scene were injured by flying gunfire, treated at hospitals and released.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives announced it is assisting in the investigation of the shootings.
“Once again, this is another example of gun violence in our community,” police Chief Jeri Williams said. “How many more officers have to be shot? How many more community members have to be killed before those in our community take a stand? This is not a Phoenix police issue, this is a community issue. If not now, when?”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

IMF board approves release of over $1.1 billion bailout funds: Pakistan finance minister

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 02:24:37 +0000

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ISLAMABAD: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) board on Monday approved the seventh and eighth reviews of Pakistan‘s bailout programme, the country’s finance minister Miftah Ismail said, which will release $1.17 billion in funds to the cash-strapped country.
“The IMF Board has approved the revival of our EFF program. We should now be getting the 7th & 8th tranche of $1.17 billion,” Ismail said on Twitter.
The IMF’s resident representative in Islamabad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Now, Nitin Gadkari’s ‘use-and-throw’ remark stirs talk of barb at BJP

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 02:21:59 +0000

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NAGPUR: Union minister Nitin Gadkari‘s remark at an event in Nagpur last weekend about the importance of not adopting a “use-and-throw attitude” to relationships had the political grapevine linking it to his omission from BJP‘s top decision-making bodies.
“Human relationships constitute the biggest strength of a business, social work or politics…In your good or bad days, once you hold the hand of a friend, you should never let go of it,” he told a gathering of entrepreneurs at the Young Presidents Organisation’s newest South Asia chapter in Vidarbha.
The speech, a video of which has since been widely circulated, was punctuated with Gadkari’s trademark homilies. “Being successful and happy individually has no meaning. But being successful as a team is truly meaningful, because your co-workers of all ranks are a happier lot because of the collective success,” he said. While reminiscing about the old days with his friend and former Congress functionary Shrikant Jichkar, Gadkari said he had been offered an opportunity to join the party when he was a student leader, to which he responded by saying he would “rather jump into a well”.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

UN Chief Appeals For “Restraint” In Iraq Amid Political Unrest

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 02:19:48 +0000

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The situation escalated sharply after Moqtada Sadr’s supporters stormed the government palace on Monday.

United Nations:

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Monday called for “restraint” in Iraq and asked all parties to “take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation” as Baghdad’s Green Zone descended into chaos, according to his spokesman.

The secretary-general “has been following with concern the ongoing protests in Iraq today, during which demonstrators entered government buildings,” Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

“He appeals for calm and restraint, and urges all relevant actors to take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation and avoid any violence,” Dujarric added.

“The Secretary-General strongly urges all parties and actors to rise above their differences and to engage, without further delay, in a peaceful and inclusive dialogue on a constructive way forward.”

Baghdad’s Green Zone was rocked by violence Monday after powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr said he was quitting politics, sparking chaos in which 15 of his supporters were killed.

Tensions have soared in Iraq amid a political crisis that has left the country without a new government, prime minister or president for months.

The situation escalated sharply after Sadr’s supporters stormed the government palace on Monday following their leader’s announcement.

By evening at least seven shells had fallen in the high-security Green Zone, which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions, a security source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the shelling, which was followed by the sound of automatic weapons being fired in the Green Zone.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

News Courtesy: www.ndtv.com

Floods wreak havoc across Pakistan, death toll is 1,061

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 02:18:31 +0000

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ISLAMABAD: The overall death toll from floods across Pakistan reached 1,061 on Monday while rising levels of the gushing Indus river threatened more deluges in the lower-lying plains of Punjab and Sindh provinces before emptying into the Arabian Sea.
Data released by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) stated that 1,600 people were injured and more than 719,000 livestock had perished.
The floods, according to NDMA, destroyed over 3,451 km of roads, 149 bridges, 170 shops, and 949,858 houses, and swept away villages, crops and orchards spread over thousands of acres.
Pakistan finance minister Miftah Ismail said the floods have inflicted an estimated “loss of at least $10 billion” on the country.
Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s climate change minister, said in a video posted on Twitter that Pakistan is experiencing a “serious climate catastrophe, one of the hardest in the decade”.
“We are at the moment at ground zero of the front line of extreme weather events in an unrelenting cascade of heatwaves, forest fires, flash floods, multiple glacial lake outbursts, flood events, and now the monster monsoon of the decade is wreaking non-stop havoc throughout the country,” she said.
As experts blame climate change for the flooding, people are criticising government and local authorities for allowing builders to construct hotels and houses on the banks of rivers. “These hotels and markets block the natural waterways. Much of the devastation would have been avoided if we had not blocked the paths of rivers,” said Khaista Rehman, a resident of Kalam in Swat, where floods had wiped out most of the hotels and markets that had been built on the banks of the river.
“I haven’t seen destruction of this scale, I find it very difficult to put it into words … it is overwhelming,” Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari told foreign media, adding that many crops that provided much of the population’s livelihoods had been wiped out. “Going forward, I would expect not only the IMF, but the international community and international agencies to truly grasp the level of devastation,” he said.Flooding from the Swat river had affected northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where tens of thousands of people — especially in Charsadda and Nowshera districts — have been evacuated from their homes to relief camps set up in government buildings. Many have also taken shelter on roadsides, said Kamran Bangash, a spokesperson for the provincial government. Bangash said some 180,000 people have been evacuated from villages in Charsadda and 150,000 from Nowshera district villages.
The Swat river merges with the Kabul river in Charsadda and joins the Indus at a historical place where a military fort built by Mughal emperor Akbar, which had guarded the northwest of India after the 1560s until Partition, still stands.
The combined flow of the Jhelum, Ravi, Chenab, Beas and Sutlej rivers run southwest for approximately 71 km before joining the Indus at Mithankot, southern Punjab.
Millions of people await more misery as the Indus gushes towards the low-lying areas of Sindh and southern Punjab. The latest inflow and outflow levels of the Indus recorded at Chashma, Pakistan Punjab, stand at 525,362 cusecs and 519,362 cusecs, respectively.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

WHO could have sounded COVID-19 alarm ‘sooner’, says independent global panel report

Editor — Sat, 27 Aug 2022 07:25:06 +0000

Geneva: The catastrophic scale of the COVID-19 pandemic could have been prevented, an independent global panel concluded Wednesday, but a “toxic cocktail” of dithering and poor coordination meant the warning signs went unheeded.

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) said a series of bad decisions meant COVID-19 went on to kill at least 3.3 million people so far and devastate the global economy.

Institutions “failed to protect people” and science-denying leaders eroded public trust in health interventions, the IPPPR said in its long-awaited final report.

Early responses to the outbreak detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019 “lacked urgency”, with February 2020 a costly “lost month” as countries failed to heed the alarm, said the panel.

To tackle the current pandemic, it called on the richest countries to donate a billion vaccine doses to the poorest. And the panel also called on the world’s wealthiest nations to fund new organisations dedicated to preparing for the next pandemic.

‘Delay, hesitation and denial’

The report was requested by World Health Organization (WHO) member states last May. The panel was jointly chaired by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a 2011 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The report, “COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic”, argued that the global alarm system needed overhauling to prevent a similar catastrophe.

“The situation we find ourselves in today could have been prevented,” Sirleaf told reporters. “It is due to a myriad of failures, gaps and delays in preparedness and response.”

The report said the emergence of COVID-19 was characterised by a mixture of “some early and rapid action, but also by delay, hesitation, and denial.

“Poor strategic choices, unwillingness to tackle inequalities and an uncoordinated system created a toxic cocktail which allowed the pandemic to turn into a catastrophic human crisis.”

The threat of a pandemic had been overlooked and countries were woefully unprepared to deal with one, the report found.

Vaccine ultimatum

The panel did not spare the WHO, saying it could have declared the situation a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) – its highest level of alarm – on 22 January, 2020. Instead, it waited eight more days before doing so.

Nevertheless, given countries’ relative inaction, “we might still have ended up in the same place”, said Clark.

It was only in March after the WHO described it as a pandemic – a term that is not officially part of its alert system – that countries were jolted into action.

As for the initial outbreak, “there were clearly delays in China – but there were delays everywhere”, she added.

Without the lag between the first identification in Wuhan and the PHEIC declaration — and then the “lost month” of February 2020 — “we believe we wouldn’t be looking at an accelerating pandemic, as we have for the last 15 or 16 months or so. As simple as that”, said Clark.

The panel made several recommendations on how to address the current pandemic.

Rich, well-vaccinated countries should provide the 92 poorest territories in the Covax scheme with at least one billion vaccine doses by 1 September, and more than two billion by mid-2022, it said.

The G7 industrialised nations should pay 60 percent of the $19 billion required to fund vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics via the WHO’s Access to Covid Tools Accelerator programme in 2021, it added.

Fellow G20 nations and others should provide the rest.

The WHO and the World Trade Organization should also get major vaccine-producing countries and manufacturers to agree on voluntary licensing and technology transfers for COVID-19 vaccines, the panel said.

“If actions do not occur within three months, a waiver of… intellectual property rights should come into force immediately.”

Invest billions, save trillions

To tackle future outbreaks and pandemics, the panel called for a Global Health Threats Council made up of world leaders, plus a pandemic convention.

The G20 should also create an International Pandemic Financing Facility, able to spend $5-10 billion a year on preparedness, with $50 to $100 billion ready to roll in the event of a crisis.

“Ultimately, investing billions in preparedness now will save trillions in the future, as the current pandemic has so clearly illustrated,” Clark told reporters.

The panel also proposed an overhaul of the WHO to give it greater control over its funding and more authority for its leadership.

Its alert system needed to be faster and it should have the authority to send expert missions to countries immediately without waiting for their green light, it added.

The panel believes their recommendations would have stopped COVID-19 from becoming a pandemic, had they been in place before the outbreak.

Health

COVID-19 Latest News and Updates: Maharashtra’s daily COVID growth rate is half of national average, says health minister

Editor — Sun, 16 May 2021 21:45:34 +0000

23:58 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Mumbai suspends vaccination for 18-44 age group

The COVID-19 inoculation drive for the 18-44 years age group in Mumbai has been suspended until further orders, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) announced on Wednesday evening.

The announcement followed the Maharashtra government’s decision to suspend inoculation for this category and divert the vaccine stock for the above 45 years age group due to paucity of doses.

The BMC earlier in the day also issued revised guidelines allowingwalk-in vaccination in Mumbai for certain categories for three days.

23:50 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Jharkhand extends lockdown-like restrictions till 27 May

The Jharkhand government on Wednesday extended the lockdown-like restrictions with stricter provisions, including 7 days mandatory quarantine for people visiting the state, till May 27 amid a surge in COVID- 19 cases, officials said.

The cap on people attending weddings has been fixed at 11, lower from earlier 50 persons with a provision that marriages can be conducted either at homes or at courts. The restrictions, first imposed on 22 April were enlarged till 13 May and now stand further extended till 27 May with harsh provisions.

The decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the State Disaster Management Authority, chaired by Chief Minister Hemant Soren.

23:40 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Maharashtra’s daily COVID-19 growth rate is half of national average: Tope

Maharashtra’s per day COVID-19 growth rate is 0.8 percent, which is half of the country’s average of 1.4 percent, state Health Minister Rajesh Tope said on Wednesday. He said that out of 36 states, Maharashtra is at the 30th position in terms of the growth of coronavirus infection.

“Maharashtra’s COVID-19 growth rate is merely half of the country’s daily growth rate. The state’s per day growth rate is 0.8 percent as against the country’s rate of 1.4 percent. The state is carrying out around two lakh tests on a daily basis while per million testings is around 2.50 lakh. It is a very good sign for us,” he said.

Tope, however, cautioned by saying, “The strict measures under the ‘Break the Chain’ directives introduced by the Maharashtra government have definitely brought down the number of COVID-19 cases, but the curve is not stable yet.

23:26 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Rajasthan to issue global tender for COVID-19 vaccines

The Rajasthan government will purchase vaccines from abroad to speed up the coronavirus vaccination process in the state and a global tender will be issued for the same.

Along with this, the government has also approved direct purchase of coronavirus treatment drugs and equipment from the companies.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the state council of ministers held through video conference on Wednesday under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

In the meeting, important decisions were made for speedy procurement of vaccines, medicines, oxygen concentrators and other necessary resources to deal with the surge in coronavirus infections in the state.

23:13 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Vaccination for journalists: Not enough vaccine stock, says Maharashtra govt

The Maharashtra government said on Wednesday that journalists can be extended the facility of inoculation on priority only when the state gets a sufficient stock of vaccine doses. Earlier in the day, BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis supported the demand that journalists be considered frontline workers and vaccinated on priority.

“We are being told that over one crore Covishield vials would be available from May 20 onwards. If we get vials in such a large quantity, we can discuss the proposal of vaccinating journalists under the frontline workers category,” he told reporters.

22:52 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

With vaccine shortage hitting the state, Karnataka suspends vaccine for 18-44 yrs group

The Karnataka government on Wednesday decided to import vaccines, as a shortage of dosages hit the state and the demand went up substantially with an alarming rise in COVID cases. The state government also decided to suspend the vaccination for people between 18-44 years age group, which had started symbolically on May 1, till further orders.

“Today the state government has decided that the vaccine procured directly by the state for vaccination of persons between 18 and 44 years will be utilised for vaccination of beneficiaries who are due for second dose,” a notification issued by the government said.

“We have to purchase vaccines for people between the age group of 18-44 years. We have already paid money to the two vaccine manufacturers in the country for three crore doses. Out of three crore doses, we have received seven lakh,” Karnataka Chief Secretary P Ravi Kumar told reporters here.

He said the government will administer vaccines as and when the stocks arrive. “Since we are not getting adequate vaccines because there are just two manufacturers, we are going to issue orders to import (vaccine),” Ravi Kumar said. He added that the Government of India has approved only one vaccine outside India.

22:42 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

India’s total COVID-19 vaccination coverage exceeds 17.70 cr doses

The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has gone past 17.70 crore, the Union Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

It said 4,17,321 beneficiaries in the age group of 18-44 years have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and cumulatively 34,66,895 across 30 states and union territories since the start of the third phase of the vaccination drive.

“The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country stands at 17,70,85,371 as per the 8 pm provisional report,” the ministry said.

The total of 17,70,85,371 include 95,98,626 healthcare workers (HCWs) who have taken the first dose and 65,68,343 HCWs who have taken the second dose, 1,42,26,185 frontline workers (FLWs) who have received the first dose, 80,25,849 FLWs who have taken the second dose and 34,66,895 beneficiaries in the 18-44 years of age group who have taken the first dose.

22:31 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Crematorium workers to be considered as frontline warriors, says Gujarat govt

Those working at crematoriums will be considered as COVID-19 frontline workers and will get all related benefits, the Gujarat government said on Wednesday.
The benefits include Rs 25 lakh for the family if a worker dies due to the virus infection.

“At the meeting of the state core committee headed by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani it was decided that staff of crematoriums throughout the state should be considered as frontline workers,” an official release said. They will be eligible for benefits retrospectively, from April 1, 2020, when the outbreak began.

The decision was taken as a compassionate measure considering that crematorium workers are overburdened, the release added.

22:23 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

PM reviews availability, supply of oxygen and medicines

The supply of oxygen is now more than three times of what it was during the peak of the first COVID-19 wave, the Prime Minister’s Office said on Wednesday, noting that production of all drugs, including Remdesivir, has been ramped up significantly in the last few weeks as India battles the nationwide surge in infections.

At a high-level meeting which Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired to review the availability and supply of oxygen and medicines, it was noted that states are being provided medicines in good quantities with the Centre in regular touch with the manufacturers to enhance their production and extend all help needed.

The central government is actively monitoring the supply of drugs being used in the management of COVID as well mucormycosis, a rare fungal infection being reported at some places

21:51 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Madhya Pradesh logs 8,970 new cases, 84 deaths

Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday reported 8,970 fresh cases of COVID-19 and 84 fatalities, taking its infection tally to 7,00,202 and death toll to 6,679, the state health department said. A total of 10,324 patients were discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours, which pushed the state’s recovery count to 5,83,595, it said.

With 1,597 new cases, Indore’s caseload went up to 1,31,707, while that of Bhopal rose to 1,08,546 with 1,304 new cases. Indore reported seven deaths, taking the toll to 1,227, while the number of fatalities in Bhopal rose to 817 after five people succumbed to the virus, the officials said. Indore is now left with 17,514 active cases while Bhopal has 15,664 such cases.

21:41 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Tamil Nadu reports highest single-day rise

Tamil Nadu recorded 30,355 new COVID-19 cases in the single biggest day spike so far on Wednesday, pushing the caseload to 14,68,864 while 293 deaths in the last 24 hours took the toll to 16,471

21:28 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Maharashtra reports 46,781 new COVID-19 cases, 816 deaths

Maharashtra reported 46,781 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, an uptick from 40,956 a day ago, and 816 deaths, the health department said.
The caseload increased to 52,26,710, while toll reached 78,007, it said. On Tuesday Maharashtra had reported 40,956 COVID-19 cases, 793 deaths and 71,966 recoveries.

Of 816 fatalities, 387 had occurred in the past 48 hours, 193 last week and the rest even before that but were added to the tally on Wednesday. As many as 58,805 patients were discharged from hospitals taking the total of recoveries to 46,00,196. Maharashtra now has 5,46,129 active cases.

21:22 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

111 mucormycosis patients undergoing treatment in Mumbai

As many as 111 patients, all COVID-19 survivors, are undergoing treatment for the fungal infection `mucormycosis’ in Mumbai hospitals, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) informed on Wednesday.

Prabhakar Shinde, the BJP’s group leader in the BMC said the information was provided to the civic body’s standing committee upon his query.

Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani told the committee that 38 mucormycosis patients are being treated at the civic-run BY Nair Hospital, 34 at KEM Hospital, 32 at Sion Hospital and seven at Cooper Hospital, he said. Most of these patients are from outside Mumbai, according to the BMC.

Shinde also said that the civic body has set up a medical experts’ panel to decide the line of treatment for the disease, and all hospitals have been informed about the precautionary measures to avoid its spread.

-PTI

21:14 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Parliamentary panel had asked Centre to ramp up production in March

A parliamentary standing committee had in March suggested ramping up of production capacity of the two COVID vaccines manufactured in India for ensuring their availability to a wider population as soon as possible after it was informed that there could be a “shortage” if the inoculation is opened beyond the priority groups.

The recommendation was made by the 31-member committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change, chaired by senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, in its report on Demand for Grants for Department of Biotechnology that was tabled in Parliament on 8 March.

The panel has as many as 14 members from the ruling BJP.

READ FULL REPORT HERE

21:05 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Shift vaccine centres to avoid crowding, says Madras HC

The Madras High Court on Wednesday suggested to the Tamil Nadu government to relocate Covid-19 vaccination centres from hospitals elsewhere in order to prevent crowding. The state government also submitted a status report on various aspects including availability of beds, oxygen and vaccine stocks.

The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, said that “to reduce the fear, stress and crowding among the people, we are asking to shift the vaccination centers from the hospital and set up at other places of public convenience.”

The court was hearing a case taken up on its own on issues, including shortage of beds and ventillators, besides diversion of oxygen.

20:49 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Uttarakhand import 20 lakh doses of Sputnik V

Uttarakhand will import 20 lakh doses of Sputnik V vaccine over the next two months, officials said on Wednesday. Giving the information at a press conference , Chief Secretary Om Prakash said a five-member committee has been constituted for the purpose and the required funds have been arranged.

The state government has also requested the country’s leading vaccine manufacturing companies to supply doses of the vaccine to Uttarakhand, he said. He said the state government is constantly in talks with the Centre also as vaccine doses received so far are not adequate. “We will get 8 lakh doses this month and 9 lakh doses next on the condition that the second dose is administered to people who have already got the first dose,” he said.

PTI

20:44 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

269 IIT-Jodhpur students test COVID positive since 2 Feb

A total of 269 IIT-Jodhpur students returning to the campus have tested COVID-19 positive since 2 February, university officials said on Wednesday. With students arriving at the campus for their practical sessions, 3,000 RT-PCR tests were conducted till May 10 to curb the spread of the infection.

Of the 269 students who have tested COVID positive, 240 have fully recovered while the remaining 29 are in the process of recovery and are in isolation, Deputy Registrar Amardeep Sharma said.

PTI

20:36 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Allahabad HC asks UP govt to respond to allegations of mismanagement of oxygen, beds

The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday directed the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh to respond to the allegations of mismanagement in availability of oxygen, beds and medcines required for the treatment of serious Covid-19 patients. Justices Ritu Raj Awasthi and Manish Mathur of the Lucknow Bench of the High Court was dealing with the PIL which also said that audit of the oxygen and supply of medicines in the State was required to be done so that they are properly utilised. We direct the counsel for the opposite parties to seek instructions in the matter, said the bench which declined the submission of the state government not to entertain the PIL as the High Court at Allahabad was already seized of the same issues in a suo motu matter.

PTI

20:16 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

SII, Bharat Biotech submit production plan for the next four months

Amid multiple states reporting a shortage of COVID-19 vaccine, Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech have submitted to the Centre their production plan for the next four months, informing they can ramp it up to 10 crore and 7.8 crore doses respectively by August, official sources said on Wednesday

The sources said the Union Health Ministry and the office of Drugs Controller General of India had sought from both the firms their production plan for June, July, August and September.

The Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech’s indigenously developed Covaxin and Oxford-AstraZeneca”s Covishield, being manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, are currently being used in India”s inoculation drive against coronavirus.

20:11 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

No politician should hold physical functions amid lockdown, says HC

Expressing its displeasure with politicians for not following COVID-19 lockdown curbs imposed in Maharashtra, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court on Wednesday said no leader or minister should conduct physical ceremonies or functions.

While hearing a suo motu (on its own) on COVID-19- related issues, a division bench of Justices R V Ghuge and B U Debadwar said no politician or minister shall conduct physical ceremonies or functions.

The bench was informed by an advocate that Shiv Sena leader and state cabinet minister Sandipan Bhumre had participated in inauguration functions where people had gathered in large numbers.

19:51 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Ministers propose extending Maharashtra lockdown, CM to take final call

“At the Cabinet meeting, the health department and ministers proposed extending the lockdown for 15 days. The chief minister will take a final decision on this matter,” ANI quotes Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope as saying.

At the Cabinet meeting, the health department & ministers proposed to extend the lockdown for 15 days. The chief minister will take a final decision on this matter: Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope pic.twitter.com/tjIEQZ8YLg

— ANI (@ANI) May 12, 2021

19:39 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Maharashtra halts vaccinations for 18-44 age group

The Maharashtra govt has temporarily suspended the vaccination programme for those in the 18 to 44 age group, due to a shortage of vaccine, say reports. According to news agency ANI, state health minister Rajesh Tope said all vaccine doses will be diverted to those above the age of 45.

“Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla has promised the chief minister to deliver 1.5 crore doses of Covishield to Maharashtra after 20 May. We will start the vaccination for 18-44 age group after we receive the vaccines,” ANI quotes Tope as saying.

Vaccination for 18-44 age group has been suspended for the time being due to shortage of vaccines. All the doses purchased by the state government for the age group will now be diverted for the 45+ category: Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope after state Cabinet meeting pic.twitter.com/hZIoJqqevP

— ANI (@ANI) May 12, 2021

19:33 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Delhi receives 2.67 lakh more doses of Covishield, runs out of Covaxin stock: Atishi

AAP leader Atishi on Wednesday said Delhi received 2.67 lakh more doses of Covishield vaccine on May 11, but it has completely run out of Covaxin. She said some Covaxin centres for the 18-44 age group have been temporarily shut from Wednesday. “Around 16,000 Covaxin doses, which were available in the morning, were administered at 44 centres. These centres will also be shut after Wednesday evening,” the AAP MLA said.

Atishi hoped that the Central government would intervene and make Covaxin doses available for the 18-44 age category. “Soon it will be time to give the second dose of Covaxin to beneficiaries in this category,” she added.

PTI

18:58 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Twelve Opposition leaders write to Modi, suggest nine measures to fight pandemic

Leaders of 12 Opposition parties in a joint letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the government should implement nine measures, including procuring vaccines from all available sources centrally and immediately starting a universal and free mass vaccination programme, on a war footing. Other measures suggested by the Opposition leaders include spending Rs 35,000 crore budgetary allocation for the vaccines and releasing all money in the ” unaccounted private trust fund” PM CARES for the purchase of more vaccines, oxygen, and medical equipment. The signatories include Sonia Gandhi (Congress), Mamata Banerjee (TMC), MK Stalin (DMK), Hemant Soren (JMM), Sitaram Yechury (CPM), among others.

Without going into all the acts of commission and omission by the Central govt that have brought the country to such a tragic pass, we are of the firm opinion that the following measures be undertaken on a war footing.

– Joint Letter by Major Opposition Parties to PM Modi pic.twitter.com/YJ283g4arV

— Congress (@INCIndia) May 12, 2021

18:43 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Karnataka puts off CET exam to August-end

The Karnataka government on Wednesday announced postponing the Common Entrance Test- 2021 following the postponement of the second pre-university

exam this year. The exam will now take place from 28 to 30 August, the government said. “Due to the postponement of the 2021 annual PUC second year examinations and the surge in COVID-19 cases in the state, Common Entrance Test-2021 has been postponed,” Deputy Chief Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan, who also holds the higher education portfolio, said in a statement.

PTI

18:37 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

SC judge Justice DY Chandrachud tests positive

Supreme Court judge Justice DY Chandrachud has tested positive for COVID-19, said reports. Justice Chandrachud is currently heading the bench which is hearing the suo motu case concerning COVID-19 issues. According to Bar&Bench, the case will not be heard on Thursday .

18:17 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Railways has delivered over 6,000 tonnes of LMO on 100 Oxygen Express

The Railways has delivered nearly 6,260 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen (LMO) onboard 100 Oxygen Express’ trains since April 19 when it started its first such service, an official statement said on Wednesday. The Railways delivered 800 tonnes of LMO to the nation on Tuesday, it said.

“One hundred Oxygen Expresses have completed their journey so far and brought relief to various states. It is the Indian Railways’ endeavour to deliver as much LMO as possible in the shortest time possible to the requesting states. So far, nearly 6,260 tonnes of of LMO has been delivered in 396 tankers,” the statement said.

Till now, 407 tonnes of oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 1,680 tonnes in Uttar Pradesh, 360 tonnes in Madhya Pradesh, 939 tonnes in Haryana, 123 tonnes in Telangana, 40 tonnes in Rajasthan, 120 tonnes in Karnataka, and more than 2,404 tonnes in Delhi, it said.

PTI

17:57 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Mamata Banerjee proposes franchise mode for bulk production of COVID-19 vaccines

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee writes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling for a liberal, pro-active import of COVID-19 vaccines. In her letter, Banerjee says that the production and hence supply and distribution of COVID-19 vaccine seems to be extremely inadequate and insignificant when compared to the massive needs of the people. Banerjee also asked the prime minister to consider encouraging global and national manufacturers to set up franchise operations in the country. the Bengal govt is ready to provide land and support in this regard, she says in the letter.

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee writes to PM Narendra Modi, urging to ‘speedily import vaccines’ from global manufacturers

She suggests PM Modi to ‘encourage world & national players (vaccine manufacturers) to open up franchise operations’. pic.twitter.com/Ss2sQLX2xi

— ANI (@ANI) May 12, 2021

17:48 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Azam Khan’s condition stable, but next 72 hours critical: Hospital

The condition of senior Samajwadi Party leader and Rampur MP Mohammad Azam Khan, admitted to a private facility here, is stable but the next 72 hours will be “critical”, the hospital treating him said on Wednesday. Azam Khan and his son Abdullah were shifted from the Sitapur jail to Medanta hospital in Lucknow for coronavirus treatment, officials said.

“Azam Khan was admitted here on 9 May. He has COVID pneumonia. Due to high oxygen demand, he was shifted to the ICU. As compared to Tuesday, his oxygen requirement has come down. He is conscious and taking food. His condition is stable and the next 72 hours will be critical,” Medanta Medical Director Rakesh Kapoor said. “Our entire team is taking care of him in accordance with the severe infection disease protocol. The condition of Abdullah is satisfactory and he is also under observation,” Kapoor added.

PTI

17:31 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Could have saved many lives with door-to-door vaccination, says Bombay HC

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday said if the Union government had started door-to- door vaccination programme for senior citizens a few months

back, then lives of many of them, including prominent persons, could have been saved. A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni asked the Union government why not pro-actively start this programme when the lives of senior citizens, who are unable to go to vaccination centres to get inoculated, are concerned.

The bench was hearing a public interest litigation filed by two lawyers Dhruti Kapadia and Kunal Tiwari seeking door-to-door vaccination facility for senior citizens above the age of 75, specially-abled persons and those who are bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound.

PTI

17:27 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Tamil Nadu to invite global tenders for vaccines

The Tamil Nadu government decided to invite short-term global tenders for procuring COVID-19 vaccines for the 18-45 age group, said reports. According to The New Indian Express, Chief Minister MK Stalin also ordered establishing additional oxygen production units in the state to meet the rising demand.

17:17 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Over 84% vaccine doses sent abroad due to commercial, licensing liabilities: BJP

The ruling BJP accused the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday of spreading misinformation on India’s vaccination programme and said over 84 percent of the vaccine doses sent abroad were part of the commercial and licensing liabilities of the two Indian manufacturers. Addressing a virtual press conference, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Sambit Patra said 1.07 crore vaccine doses sent abroad were India’s aid to different countries and noted that of those, 78.5 lakh were dispatched to seven neighbouring countries. More than two lakh doses were given to the UN peace-keeping force, in which over 6,600 Indian soldiers are deployed, Patra said.

PTI

17:11 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Black fungus scare: Govt engaging with drug makers to ramp up production of anti-fungal drug

The government is engaging with the drug manufacturers to ramp up the production of an antifungal drug used for the treatment of mucormycosis, the Chemicals and Fertilizers Ministry said, as a rash of cases of rare black fungus infection have been reported among people either recovered or recovering from COVID-19. With a spike in the cases of COVID-19 in the country, doctors have been reporting a rare infection mucormycosis, also called as black fungus, among people recovered from COVID-19. The infection is caused by exposure to mucor mould and it affects the sinuses, the brain and the lungs and can be life-threatening.

“A sudden increase in demand has been observed in some states for Amphotericin B which is being actively prescribed by the physicians to patients suffering from mucormycosis, a post-COVID complication,” the ministry said in a statement. The government is therefore engaging with the manufacturers to ramp up production of the drug. The supply position is expected to improve with extra imports of this drug and increase in its production domestically, it added.

PTI

17:09 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Order on Navneet Kalra’s anticipatory bail plea tomorrow

Delhi Court reserves order in anticipatory bail application moved by Navneet Kalra in case filed in connection with seizure of oxygen concentrators from his restaurants. The order will be pronounced on Thursday at 10 am, reports Bar&Bench.

16:57 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Follow Centre’s SoP on vaccinating prison inmates, Bombay HC tells Maharashtra

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the Maharashtra government to follow the Union government’s SoP on vaccinating prison inmates, including those inmates who do not have an Aadhaar card. A bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni also directed the state to fill up vacancies for

doctors and other medical staff in prisons and correctional homes across the state.

The bench was hearing a bunch of public interest litigations (PILs), including one taken up suo motu (on its own), on containing the spread of COVID-19 in prisons across Maharashtra.

PTI

16:45 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Delhi records 13,287 new cases, 300 deaths

The National Capital reported 13,287 new coronavirus cases and 300 more fatalities on Wednesday, while the positivity rate came down to 17 percent, the lowest in nearly a month, according to the health department. The 13,287 new cases came from 78,035 tests, including 63315 RTPCR/CBNAAT/True Nat tests, conducted on Tuesday.

As many as 14,071 people recovered from the infection during the period, the health bulletin said. Now there are 82,725 active cases, down from 83,809 the previous day and 49,974 of them are in home isolation, it said. The number of cumulative cases stands at 13,61,986 and the toll at 20,310.

PTI

16:34 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

HC pulls up Delhi govt for not fully operationalising Indira Gandhi Hospital

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday pulled up the Delhi government for not yet fully operationalising its 1,241 bedded Indira Gandhi Hospital, which presently has only 80 beds available that too for non-serious COVID patients, saying the state should learn from the “bitter experience” of the people during the present onslaught of the second wave of the pandemic. A bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said that had the Delhi government taken up the completion of the hospital as a pressing issue, it would have been up and running by now.

“If a third wave comes, as many experts are warning it might, and your facility is not up and running (to full capacity), then again we would be back to this situation,” it said after senior advocate Rahul Mehra said completion of the hospital was not a pressing issue as around 4,500 beds were available in the National Capital at present.

PTI

16:11 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Make action plan for possible third wave, Karnataka HC tells state govt

The Karnataka HC directs the state government to prepare an action plan and vision statement outlining its preparedness for dealing with possible third wave of COVID-19, reports LiveLaw. “Though during last few days we have dealt with immediate measures enormous challenge posed by Covid-19 it is high time that state starts preparation for dealing with third wave by projecting estimate for drugs, oxygen personnel etc,” Live Law quotes the court as saying. The court asked the Karnataka government to place before it the plan within two weeks

HC: By projecting estimate for drugs, oxygen personnel etc. We direct state to prepare an action plan and vision statement dealing with state of preparedness for dealing with third possible wave of Covid-19. Necessary vision plan to be placed on record within two weeks from tdy.

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) May 12, 2021

15:59 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Rajasthan to conduct rapid antigen tests in rural areas, says health minister

With the coronavirus infection spreading rapidly in rural areas of Rajasthan, the state government has decided to conduct rapid antigen tests to detect COVID-19 cases at an early stage. Health Minister Raghu Sharma said on Wednesday that the rapid antigen test will be conducted in community health centres and other hospitals to check the spread of the virus in rural areas.

COVID-19 is spreading rapidly in rural areas and is a cause of concern for the state government, he said, adding the decision to conduct rapid antigen tests was taken after taking into account the situation in rural areas. “The report of the antigen test is received within half an hour. Those who are found positive will be isolated and treatment will be started while RTPCR test will be conducted for those who are negative in antigen test but have symptoms, Sharma said.

PTI

15:56 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

World could have prevented COVID catastrophe: expert panel

The catastrophic scale of the COVID-19 pandemic could have been prevented, an independent global panel concluded Wednesday, but a “toxic cocktail” of dithering and poor coordination meant the warning signs went unheeded. The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) said a series of bad decisions meant Covid-19 went on to kill at least 3.3 million people so far and devastate the global economy. Institutions “failed to protect people” and science-denying leaders eroded public trust in health interventions, the IPPPR said in its long-awaited final report.

Early responses to the outbreak detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019 “lacked urgency”, with February 2020 a costly “lost month” as countries failed to heed the alarm, said the panel. The panel did not spare the WHO, saying it could have declared the situation a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) —its highest level of alarm —on 22 January , 2020. Instead, it waited eight more days before doing so. Nevertheless, given countries’ relative inaction, “we might still have ended up in the same place”, said former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark.

AFP

15:43 (IST)

Karnataka HC seeks district-wise data of beds

During a hearing on a batch of petition on the management of COVID-19 in the state, the Karnataka HC said going by estimates there is a shortage of beds and told the state to be prepared as experts have warned of a third wave, reports LiveLaw. “Perhaps nobody anticipated about future requirement during the first wave and thus now you (State) should be more prepared. Disaster Management Act says about preparedness. Address us on this next week,” LiveLaw quotes Chief Justice Abhay Oka as saying. The court said it wanted district wise data of beds, as increase only in one area it may not serve the purpose.

The court also said that the suggestion made by the KSLSA Committee in the report on the Chamarajanagar incident should be considered by the state government immediately.

HC: Vehicles carrying LMO should be installed by GPS. It is observed that one bottling plaint in Mysuru city is non functional. State will take immediate steps to revive the functioning.

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) May 12, 2021

15:35 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

WHO has not associated term “Indian Variant” with the B.1.617 strain, says health ministry

Taking umbrage against the B.1.617 mutant of the novel coronavirus being termed an “Indian variant”, the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday said the WHO has not used the word “Indian” for this strain in its document. The ministry dismissed as “without any basis and unfounded” media reports that have used the term “Indian variant” for the B.1.617 mutant strain, which the WHO recently said was a “variant of global concern”.

“Several media reports have covered the news of World Health Organisation (WHO) classifying B.1.617 as variant of global concern. Some of these reports have termed the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus as an ‘Indian Variant’,” the ministry said in a statement. “These media reports are without any basis, and unfounded,” it said.

This is to clarify that the WHO has not associated the term “Indian Variant” with the B.1.617 strain of the coronavirus in its 32 page document, it said. In fact, the word “Indian” has not been used in its report on the matter, the ministry added.

PTI

15:20 (IST)

Tamil Nadu to give Rs 25L ex-gratia to families of 43 doctors who died in COVID-19 fight

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK. Stalin on Wednesday announced an ex-gratia of Rs 25 lakh each to the families of 43 doctors who died while performing their duty in the COVID-19 pandemic, said reports. According to The Hindu, Stalin also announced incentives to doctors, nurses, sanitary workers, people working in labs, operating CT scan equipment and those involved in operating ambulances during the second wave of COVID-19, for the months of April, May and June this year. According to the report, doctors, nurses, trained and qualified health workers and other medical staff will be given an incentive of Rs 30,000, Rs 20,000, Rs 15,000 and Rs 10,000 respectively for these three months.

15:07 (IST)

Oxygen allocation to TN increased, Centre tells Madras HC

Appearing for the Union government, ASG R Sankaranarayanan says that the oxygen allocation to Tamil Nadu has been increased to 519 MT, reports Bar&Bench. Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee thanks the Centre and informs that the state estimates the requirement for oxygen to go up to 800 MT. The ASG tells the court that DRDO has informed that they are setting up (PSA plants) under the PMCARES. After the ASG says states can write to PMCARES , the chief justice suggests that the state should immediately write to PM CARES for release of funds for DRDO to set up the PSA plants.

CJ suggests to State: Mr Adv … immediately write to PMCARES for release of funds for DRDO to set up the PSA plants.. at least four or five places if you can do that, it would be much better. #MadrasHighCourt #COVID19India

— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 12, 2021

14:54 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Procurement of 1.50 lakh units of oxycare system developed by DRDO approved under PM-CARES fund: DRDO

PM CARES Fund has approved procurement of 1,50,000 units of Oxycare System developed by the DRDO at a cost of Rs 322.5 crore,news agency ANI quotes DRDO as saying.” It’s a SpO2 based Oxygen Supply System, that regulates oxygen being administered to patients based on sensed SpO2 levels,” DRDO adds.

PM CARES Fund has approved procurement of 1,50,000 units of Oxycare System developed by DRDO at a cost of Rs 322.5 Cr. It’s a SpO2 based Oxygen Supply System, that regulates oxygen being administered to patients based on sensed SpO2 levels: DRDO pic.twitter.com/hkdcSZLtY6

— ANI (@ANI) May 12, 2021

14:46 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

UK strain of COVID-19 found in Rajasthan

The UK strain of COVID-19 has been found in the samples sent from Rajasthan for genome sequencing, the state government said.

The state’s Health Minister Raghu Sharma said the process of setting up genome sequencing facility at the Swai Man Singh (SMS) Medical College in Jaipur has commenced.

14:45 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updatex

Corpses found floating in rivers in UP, Bihar

The Bihar government on Tuesday said altogether 71 bodies have been fished out from the Ganges in Buxar district, where these were found floating in the river, triggering suspicion that the abandoned corpses could be those of COVID-19 patients. State Water Resources Minister Sanjay Kumar, a key aide of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, came out with a series of tweets, asserting that the bodies had flown downstream from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

Bodies were seen floating in the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia and Ghazipur districts, reported news agency PTI on Tuesday quoting local residents and authorities. Earlier, residents in UP’s Hamirpur district had spotted five bodies floating in the Yamuna, creating a scare that these were of COVID patients, an apprehension dismissed by the authorities.

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A post shared by Firstpost (@firstpost)

14:41 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Centre celebrated Tika Utsav but didn’t provide vaccines:Priyanka Gandhi

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said the Centre celebrated Tika Utsav in April but allegedly did not make arrangements to provide vaccines against COVID-19 which led to a decline in vaccinations.

The government had marked Tika Utsav, a vaccination drive between 11 and 14 April, with an aim to inoculate the maximum number of eligible people against coronavirus amid a surge in cases. “India is the largest vaccine-producing country. The BJP government marked Tika Utsav on 12 April, but did not make arrangements for providing vaccines and in 30 days there was an 82 percent decline in our vaccinations,” Gandhi alleged, sharing graphics comparing the number of vaccinations on 12 April and 9 May.

जनवरी 2021 में क्यों किया?

अमरीका और अन्य देशों ने हिंदुस्तानी वैक्सीन कंपनियों को बहुत पहले ऑर्डर दे रखा था। इसकी जिम्मेदारी कौन लेगा?

घर-घर वैक्सीन पहुंचाए बिना कोरोना से लड़ना असम्भव है। 2/2

— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) May 12, 2021

14:13 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Centre sends 80 MT oxygen to Uttarakhand

Eighty metric tonnes of oxygen sent by the Centre by an Oxygen Express train was dispatched to different districts of Uttarakhand.

Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat said enough oxygen is being supplied by the Centre to the state in view of the difficult circumstances arising out of the surge in COVID-19 cases.

Though there was never a shortage of oxygen in the state, its consumption has gone up with the rising number of oxygenated beds in hospitals and COVID care centres, Rawat said.

13:58 (IST)

Coronavirus LATEST Updates

Punjab AAP MLA alleges ventilators lying unused at Faridkot hospital

Kultar Singh Sandhwan, AAP MLA from Punjab’s Kotkapura, has alleged that ventilators supplied under PM Cares Fund are lying unused in the Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital in Faridkot.

Meanwhile, the Vice Chancellor of Faridkot’s Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, said 62 of the 82 ventilators given to the institute under the PM Cares Fund were not in working condition. He added that the hospital only has 42 working ventilators currently.

On 11 April , the Union health ministry had informed the Punjab Chief Secretary that the state was allocated 809 ventilators, out of which only 558 ventilators were installed.

These r the ventilators fm #PMCaresFund lying unused in GGSMC Faridkot. @CMOPb pls make them work for the needy #COVID19 patients….I shall be Obliged..and Appreciate….@ChitleenKSethi @ANI @AAPPunjab @CsPunjab pic.twitter.com/GV9lUZBlox

— Kultar Singh Sandhwan (@Sandhwan) May 11, 2021

India Covid LATEST News and Updates: Maharashtra’s per day COVID-19 growth rate is 0.8 percent, which is half of the country’s average of 1.4 percent, state Health Minister Rajesh Tope said on Wednesday.

Those working at crematoriums will be considered as COVID-19 frontline workers and will get all related benefits, the Gujarat government said on Wednesday. The benefits include Rs 25 lakh for the family if a worker dies due to the virus infection.

Tamil Nadu recorded 30,355 new COVID-19 cases in the single biggest day spike so far on Wednesday, pushing the caseload to 14,68,864 while 293 deaths in the last 24 hours took the toll to 16,471

The top court meanwhile issued a notice which said the scheduled hearing on Thursday before a three-judge bench headed by Justice Chandrachud in the suo motu case for ensuring distribution of essential supplies and services during the COVID-19 pandemic stands deferred as one of the judges of the bench has tested positive for coronavirus.

The Maharashtra govt has temporarily suspended the vaccination programme for those in the 18 to 45 age group, due to a shortage of vaccine, say reports. According to news agency ANI, state health minister Rajesh Tope said all vaccine doses will be diverted to those above the age of 45.

Other measures suggested by the Opposition leaders include spending Rs 35,000 crore budgetary allocation for the vaccines and releasing all money in the PM CARES for the purchase of more vaccines, oxygen, and medical equipment.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee writes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling for a liberal, pro-active import of COVID-19 vaccines. Banerjee also asked the prime minister to consider encouraging global and national manufacturers to set up franchise operations in the country. The Bengal govt is ready to provide land and support in this regard, she says in the letter.

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday said if the Union government had started door-to-door vaccination programme for senior citizens a few months back, then lives of many of them, including prominent persons, could have been saved.

The Karnataka HC directs the state government to prepare an action plan and vision statement outlining its preparedness for dealing with possible third wave of COVID-19, said reports.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK. Stalin on Wednesday announced an ex-gratia of Rs 25 lakh each to the families of 43 doctors who died while performing their duty in the COVID-19 pandemic, said reports.

India’s COVID-19 active cases dipped to 37,04,099 with a net decline of 11,122 cases in a span of 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry said on Wednesday. This is the second consecutive day that active cases have dipped.

Kultar Singh Sandhwan, AAP MLA from Punjab’s Kotkapura, has alleged that ventilators supplied under PM Cares Fund are lying unused in the Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital in Faridkot.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said Delhi’s reserve stock of vaccines is exhausted, adding that while centres administering Covishield vaccines are functioning, 100 centres across 17 schools administering Covaxin will be closed down.

As many states raise the issue of deficient supply of COVID-19 vaccines, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan will hold a meeting with the health ministers of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Punjab, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Telangana.

India recorded 3,48,421 new COVID-19 cases, 3,55,338 discharges and 4,205 deaths in the last 24 hours.

The Centre on Tuesday said that an early trend of decline in daily new COVID-19 cases and deaths has been noted in India even as hospitals and crematoriums in several cities remained full.

Addressing a press conference, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Telangana were among 18 states and Union Territories showing continued plateauing or decrease in daily new COVID-19 cases.

However, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Punjab, Assam, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, and Tripura were among 16 states and Union Territories showing a continued increasing trend in daily new COVID-19 cases.

The claim comes in the backdrop of an alarming news report from Bihar’s Buxar, where local authorities claim as many as 71 bodies of suspected COVID patients floated downstream from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh. Another bunch of over 40 bodies were found floating in the river in UP’s Ballia and Ghazipur districts.

While there was no clarity on the circumstances surrounding the deaths of these unidentified people, their sheer numbers in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic instilled fear that these were bodies of COVID patients either abandoned by resource-starved family members or dumped by callous officials at a time when crematorium and funeral homes are overburdened.

On the other hand, as per this Firstpost report, in the national capital, the administration has been forced to build makeshift crematoriums at public places, as Delhi is running out of space to cremate its dead. Public parks and other empty spaces are also being utilised for cremations.

In other development, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not travel to the UK to attend a summit of the G7 grouping in person in view of the prevailing coronavirus situation, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Tuesday. The G7 summit is scheduled to take place in Cornwall in the UK next month.

“While appreciating the invitation to the Prime Minister by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to attend the G7 Summit as a special invitee, given the prevailing COVID situation, it has been decided that the Prime Minister will not attend the G7 Summit in person,” MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said.

The numbers

India has been reeling under a calamitous second wave of coronavirus infection. However, according to official data, the daily numbers of deaths and infections have started to go down. New cases of coronavirus in India fell to 3.29 lakh after 14 days, taking the infection tally to 2,29,92,517, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday. The toll climbed by 3,876 to 2,49,992.

After registering a steady rise for two months, the active cases have reduced to 37,15,221, accounting for 16.16 percent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 82.75 percent.

Replicate Mumbai, Pune models at national level, says govt

Appreciating models of containment used in Mumbai and Pune, the Union health ministry called it a “fine example” that shows how containment measures can help restrict the spread of the disease. The Centre also said that these models should be replicated at the national level.

“Around 800 SUVs were refurbished to convert them into makeshift ambulances. A software platform was created to track and manage these ambulances. All these systems work together to ensure that patients do not face problems in finding a bed.” Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said, appreciating the systematic efforts of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, in fighting COVID-19 in Mumbai.

#Mumbai‘s decentralized approach to #COVID19 containment needs to be adopted at the national level

– @MoHFW_INDIA appreciates @mybmc‘s efforts in fighting the #Pandemic #Unite2FightCorona @MahaDGIPR @MahaHealthIEC @MahaMicHindi @airnews_mumbai @MantralayaRoom pic.twitter.com/kAxGQ0Auge

— PIB in Maharashtra (@PIBMumbai) May 11, 2021

“We have observed that strict measures like restrictions on mass gatherings and on the intermingling of people along with the closing of non-essential activities for a period of 15 days reduce the rate of growth of cases and cases start plateauing”, said the Joint Secretary.

Covaxin shortage in Delhi, Mumbai

The Delhi government Tuesday said it will have to shut a large number of Covid-19 jab centres due to a shortage of shots and urged the Centre to use its special power to allow more firms to manufacture vaccines. The Aam Aadmi Party government also announced that it will float a global tender to procure additional doses.

As many as 125 centres administering Covaxin to 18-44 age group are likely to be closed down Wednesday as the Delhi government did not receive new stock of the vaccine till Tuesday evening.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the Centre should share the vaccine formula of the two manufacturers with other capable pharmaceutical companies to scale up production in the country.

In his letter to Modi, Kejriwal said the entire country can be provided a safety cover by allowing more companies to manufacture the vaccines on a war footing in preparation for an anticipated third wave of the pandemic.

He said the Centre can also terminate the monopoly on vaccine production through the patent law.

Similarly, citing a shortage of COVID-19 vaccine does, the Maharashtra government on Tuesday decided to divert three lakh vials of Covaxin meant for the 18-44 age group for the use of the people aged 45 years and above.

Speaking to reporters, state Health Minister Rajesh Tope also said more than five lakh people above 45 years are awaiting the second dose for the want of the vaccine.

“Efficacy of the vaccine is largely affected if the second dose is not administered in a stipulated time. To avoid such health crisis, the state government has decided to divert three lakh vials (of Covaxin) purchased for the 18-44 age category for the people above 45 years,” Tope said.

In south India, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy asked the Centre to direct Bharat Biotech and ICMR-NIV to transfer the Covaxin manufacturing technology and provide the viral strain to “whoever is interested and capable of manufacturing the vaccine” so that the production could be ramped up.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jagan claimed that the present total manufacturing capacity of Covaxin did not cater to the country’s requirement.

“It may take several months to get all vaccinated at this pace. Please explore the possibility of involving all such production firms and enable them with the technology, intellectual property rights to deliver the vaccine as quickly and as affordable as possible,” the Chief Minister said.

“Anyone who can manufacture or is interested in manufacturing the vaccine should be encouraged to do so in the larger public interest. Entire manufacturing capacity should be mobilised and put to use in this testing times,” Jagan added.

Taking note of these vaccine shortages, many states took other measures to keep up with rising measures.

States issue global tender for COVID vaccine procurement

The governments of Delhi, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on Tuesday joined several other states which have decided to issue global tenders for procurement of COVID vaccines as the domestic supply fails to keep up with the rising demand amid the fierce second wave of the pandemic.

The Centre said it has so far provided more than 18 crore vaccine doses to states and UTs free of cost, but many of them have complained of an acute shortage of the jabs and are now prioritising people who need to be given their second dose within a prescribed period.

Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Odisha have also taken the global tender route for procuring vaccines swiftly.

Two crore COVID vaccine doses will be procured through global tender to meet the increased demand and to facilitate vaccination of the age group of 18-44 years, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and state COVID task force head C N Ashwath Narayan said.

“Till now, we had depended only on vaccines supplied by the central government and it was not procured from the open market by floating tender. Now, it has been instructed to float the tender and to complete the process within seven days,” Narayan said.

Delhi government too said it will float a global tender for procuring coronavirus vaccines.

Addressing a press conference, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia alleged that the BJP-ruled Centre was “forcing” state governments to invite global tenders for vaccine procurement.

The Telangana cabinet also decided to invite global tenders for procurement of COVID-19 vaccine, an official statement said.

Officials said the Andhra Pradesh government will float a global tender in a day or two for the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines from foreign manufacturers to complete the vaccination process as quickly as possible.

WHO warns against use of Ivermectin

World Health Organisation has warned against the use of Ivermectin, an orally administered drug in treating COVID-19 patients. The move comes one day after Goa government decided to administer the drug to its entire adult population, notwithstanding the fact whether they are COVID positive or not.

Chief Scientist of the WHO said that the organisation recommends against the use of the drug in the treatment of those with COVID-19, with the only exception for its use being during clinical trials.

“Safety and efficacy are important when using any drug for a new indication,” chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said.

Safety and efficacy are important when using any drug for a new indication. @WHO recommends against the use of ivermectin for #COVID19 except within clinical trials https://t.co/dSbDiW5tCW

— Soumya Swaminathan (@doctorsoumya) May 10, 2021

US Food and Drug Authority and European Medical Agency (EMA) have both advised against the use of ‘ivermectin’ to treat COVID-19 patients.

Even the Union ministry of health and family welfare had also opted out from including Ivermectin in its official Clinical Management Protocol for COVID-19 last year. Experts of the central government’s joint monitoring group and the Indian Council of Medical Research’s COVID-19 task force held a meeting to deliberate upon the issue and decided not to include Ivermectin in the clinical management protocol “because of lack of sufficient evidence on its efficacy based on randomised trials held in India and abroad,” news agency PTI had reported, citing ministry sources.

71 bodies fished out from the Ganges in Bihar so far

State Water Resources Minister Sanjay Kumar, a key aide of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, came out with a series of tweets, asserting that the bodies had flown downstream from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

“The Bihar government is seized of the matter of unfortunate case of floating mortal remains in river Ganga… The bodies have floated into Bihar from UP,” said Jha, adding, doctors have confirmed upon post-mortem that the deaths had taken place “four-five days” ago

Bodies were also seen floating in the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia and Ghazipur districts, according to local residents and the authorities on Tuesday. Ironically, the authorities here blamed the state of Bihar.

Superintendent of Police Vipin Tada said he did not know how many bodies were found. “The bodies were old. In Bihar, there is a tradition of disposing of dead bodies in the river,” he said, adding that seeing the wind direction, it seems the bodies came from Bihar.

24 COVID patients in Goa, 11 in Andhra die in govt hospitals

Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on Tuesday said 26 COVID-19 patients died at the state-run Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in the early hours and sought an investigation by the High Court to find out the exact cause.

He said these fatalities occurred between 2 am and 6 am “which is a fact”, but remained evasive about the cause.

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who visited GMCH, said the gap between the “availability of medical oxygen and its supply to COVID-19 wards in the GMCH might have caused some issues for the patients” even as he stressed that there is no scarcity of oxygen supply in the state.

Meanwhile, in Andhra Pradesh, 11 COVID-19 patients have died due to a problem with oxygen supply inside the ICU in Ruia hospital late on Monday night. The state government has announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh each to the kin of these COVID-19 patients, who died at the government-run Ruia Hospital in Tirupati.

Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy announced this during a videoconference with district Collectors. There was a five-minute lag in reloading liquid medical oxygen, which caused the pressure to drop, resulting in the deaths, Chittoor district Collector M Hari Narayanan had said.

Telangana announces 10-day lockdown from tomorrow

The Telangana Cabinet on Tuesday decided to impose a 10-day lockdown beginning 12 May from 10 am to prevent further spread of COVID-19, with four hours of relaxation in the morning.

From Wednesday onwards, all southern states – except Andhra Pradesh, where there is a partial curfew – will be under lockdown. Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are under lockdown till 24 May. In Kerala, the curbs are in force till 16 May.

The Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao-led cabinet meeting, which was held at Pragathi Bhavan has decided to give a relaxation period from 6 AM to 10 AM for the people for their general activities and needs, an official release said.

The Cabinet also decided to invite global tenders to procure the Covid-19 vaccines on a war footing, it said.

Works related to agriculture produce, allied sectors, work undertaken with the agriculture machines, running of rice mills, transport of the paddy and rice, supplying paddy to FCI, fertiliser and seeds shops and manufacturing companies and other agri-based sectors are exempted from the lockdown, it said.

“The State Cabinet will meet again on 20 May, would review the situation on the continuing of the lockdown and take a decision accordingly,” the release said.

With inputs from PTI

Health

Indecision, poor coordination at the start of outbreak led to over 3 million deaths, say experts

Editor — Sun, 16 May 2021 21:45:33 +0000

An expert panel on Wednesday blamed bad coordination as well as dithering by national governments and international organisations for the failure to tackle Covid-19 before it became a full-blown pandemic, as India’s death toll topped 250,000. India added a record 4,205 deaths to its Covid-19 toll in the past 24 hours, with the variant stoking the country’s surge now present in dozens of other countries across the globe. Looking back to the earliest days of the pandemic, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) blamed a “toxic cocktail” of dithering and poor coordination for the more than 3.3 million deaths so far and untold economic damage.

Latest figures gathered by AFP from official sources showed almost 160 million confirmed cases worldwide by 1600 GMT Wednesday.

Early responses to the outbreak detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019 “lacked urgency”, with February 2020 a costly “lost month” as countries failed to heed the alarm, said the panel.

The IPPPR insisted that rich countries should provide one billion vaccines to the world’s poorest nations by 1 September.

UK inquiry

Vaccinations have helped to ease the pandemic crisis in the United States and Europe.

The European Commission on Wednesday upgraded its economic growth forecast for this year and 2022, to 4.2 and 4.4 percent, in part thanks to faster inoculations.

Vaccine frontrunner Britain reported a 2.1-percent jump in GDP in March as it gradually emerges from lockdown.

London will nevertheless launch an inquiry next year into the handling of the pandemic by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government, after the UK suffered the world’s fifth-highest official toll so far at 127,000 deaths.

As governments eye a return to mass travel, Spain said it was hoping to welcome 45 million tourists this year and Germany said it would relax quarantine rules for holidaymakers returning from some EU neighbours.

Meanwhile many less well-off countries remain starved of vaccine doses, especially as major manufacturer India has for now frozen exports.

Bangladesh on Wednesday took delivery of half a million doses from China.

“A friend in time of need is a friend indeed,” Bangladesh’s health minister Zahid Maleque said.

As China’s vaccine diplomacy push continues, Senegal also announced it would receive 300,000 doses from Beijing.

Pointing to “unwillingness to tackle inequalities” as a key factor worsening the pandemic, the IPPPR said intellectual property rights for vaccines should be waived if doses are not delivered to poorer countries by September.

But hesitancy is also limiting vaccinations in some parts of the world, with a poll showing that most people in vaccine-sceptical Russia do not want the jab.

Undercounted deaths

For now India is struggling even to count the dead, with many experts saying official figures — 254,197 killed so far — may be an underestimate by several times.

India’s underfunded health system has left hospitals and crematoriums overwhelmed, and many Covid-19 deaths are not properly recorded.

There are fears that the virus is now raging in India’s vast rural hinterland where two-thirds of the population live, and where health care is patchy.

The swift spread has been blamed on huge political rallies and religious events that attracted millions of people over recent months, as well as the new B.1.617 variant first detected in India in October.

The European Medicines Agency said Wednesday that there is “promising evidence” that mRNA-based vaccines like those developed by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech can “neutralise” the new variant — although it is still monitoring data.

Many nations have shut their borders to travellers from India in a bid to stop the variant from reaching their shores.

But it has spread to at least 44 nations, the WHO said Tuesday, with Britain detecting the most cases of the variant outside India.

The organisation this week declared the strain a “variant of concern”, alongside three others first detected in Britain, Brazil and South Africa.

Olympic doubts

In contrast to the supply problems in Europe, the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru announced it had become the first country to have vaccinated its entire adult population of fewer than 8,000 people.

It used AstraZeneca doses supplied as part of the global Covax programme aimed at boosting immunisation in poorer nations.

But the Anglo-Swedish pharma company continues to grapple with concerns over reports of rare but serious side effects in people who have received its jab.

Norway on Wednesday said it was dropping AstraZeneca from its vaccination programme, while keeping Johnson & Johnson’s jab suspended over similar concerns.

Meanwhile Japan said it would vaccinate all its Olympic athletes ahead of the Tokyo Games, leapfrogging the general population, in a reverse of earlier promises.

As the nationwide vaccine rollout remains confined to medical workers and the elderly, golf star Hideki Matsuyama became the latest high-level sportsman to express doubts.

“If it can really be held safely, I’d like to aim for the gold medal,” he said. “But when you look at the situation Japan is in, I have mixed feelings.”

Polls show a majority in Japan oppose holding the Games this year.

In France, organisers of the Roland Garros tennis Grand Slam said would-be spectators will have to prove they are free of Covid-19 or vaccinated before attending.

Health

Jharkhand extends lockdown-like restrictions till 27 May; only 11 wedding attendees allowed

Editor — Sun, 16 May 2021 21:45:33 +0000

Ranchi: The Jharkhand government on Wednesday extended the lockdown-like restrictions with stricter provisions, including seven days mandatory quarantine for people visiting the state, till 27 May amid a surge in COVID-19 cases, officials said.

The cap on people attending weddings has been fixed at 11, lower from earlier 50 persons with a provision that marriages can be conducted either at homes or at courts.

The restrictions, first imposed on 22 April were extended till 13 May and now stand further extended till 27 May with harsh provisions.

The decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the State Disaster Management Authority, chaired by Chief Minister Hemant Soren.

Jharkhand, facing the deadly second wave of COVID-19 Wednesday reported 103 more coronavirus deaths, taking the toll to 4,085 with maximum fatalities being reported from the state capital Ranchi.

The curbs imposed as ‘Health Safety Week’ from 16 May will have firm conditions while previous restrictions that were announced till 13 May will now continue till 16 May, an
official said.

“The new restrictions include mandatory seven days home or institutional quarantine for people visiting the state barring those who will leave the state within 72 hours,” a state government official said.

Operations of inter-state and intra-state buses have been suspended while private vehicles will have to obtain e-passes for plying.

The official said that the number of people attending weddings has been fixed at 11, down from earlier 50 persons with a provision that marriages can be conducted either at
homes or at courts.

Organising any ceremony during weddings will be prohibited, the official added.

There have been a number of auspicious dates for marriage during the period. Under the stricter provisions, social distancing norms will be implemented strictly.

The state has already prohibited all indoor and outdoor congregations of more than five persons.

The restrictions first imposed as Health Safety Week till 28 April had been expanded earlier till 6 May and then till 13 May.

All education centres and coaching institutions were closed and all examinations postponed.

Cinema halls, multiplexes, stadiums, gymnasiums, swimming pools and parks, among others, had also been closed in the state.

Agriculture, industries and mining operations were functioning while essential and emergency services were exempted.

The COVID-19 tally in the state climbed to 2,96,895 with 4,365 fresh cases. It now has 54,533 active cases, and 2,38,277 people have recovered from the disease so far, it
said.

Ranchi district recorded the maximum number of new fatalities at 36, followed by East Singhbhum (14) and Dhanbad (10).

Health

Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson vaccines effective against B1617 variant of COVID-19, says top US health official

Editor — Sun, 16 May 2021 21:45:33 +0000

Washington: COVID-19 vaccines approved by the United States like Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson have effectiveness against the B1617 variant of the virus that is predominant in India, which is experiencing one of the worst outbreaks of the pandemic, a top American health official said.

The observation is based on the latest data about the variant and the three major vaccines approved by the United States, said Dr Francis Collins, Director of the National Institute of Science.

“The data is coming in, and it looks very encouraging that the US-approved vaccines, the Pfizer, the Moderna, the J&J, do have effectiveness against this variant called B1617,” Collins told the media.

“It’s a little less effective in that case than some of the others, but it looks like it ought to be good enough to make Americans protected. And that’s really a good thing to hear,” he said in response to a question.

Early this week, the World Health Organization classified the B1617 SARS-CoV-2 variant, which was first detected in India, as a variant of concern. The WHO said that evidence showed B1617 was more transmissible.

Health

Maharashtra extends lockdown-like curbs till 1 June; negative COVID-19 report must to enter state

Editor — Sun, 16 May 2021 21:45:33 +0000

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government on Thursday extended the lockdown-like restrictions in the state till 1 June to break the chain of COVID-19. Chief Secretary Sitaram Kunte in an order said the curbs will remain in force till 7 am on 1 June.

As per the order, additional restrictions include mandatory negative RT-PCR test report for any person entering the state by any mode of transport.

The test report will have to be issued within 48 hours before the time of entry into the state.

All restrictions enforced as per earlier orders for people arriving from places of “sensitive origin” will be applicable to anyone arriving from any part of the country
into the state, the order said.

In case of cargo carriers, not more than two people will be allowed to travel in those vehicles.

If the carriers are originating from outside Maharashtra, they will be allowed with a negative RT-PCR test report issued within 48 hours before the time of entry into the state and will be valid for seven days, the order said.

The lockdown-like curbs were earlier imposed in the state on 5 April. The curbs were further tightened on 15 April with Section 144 of the CrPc, banning assembly of five or more people, imposed in the entire state.

Health

Three reasons why bodies are afloat on Ganga: Costly cremation, religious beliefs, scarcity of wood

Editor — Sun, 16 May 2021 21:45:33 +0000

“Two to four bodies can be seen floating past the River Ganga’s ‘Chausa Ghat’ every 10 to 15 days,” said Buxar-based social worker Manoj Kumar, “In fact, some rural communities believe that if people do not marry, they will not be cremated and that their bodies will float along the Ganga. But the number of bodies at Chausa Ghat is higher than normal. I believe that most of the bodies at Ghazipur are at least five to six days old.”

The River Ganga flows through the coastal area of Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh, the aforementioned ‘Chausa Ghat’ and other rural areas of Buxar. So whatever flows through Varanasi reaches the banks of the Ganga in Ghazipur. And downstream, whatever flows from the ghats of the Ganga in Ghazipur reaches Chausa Ghat.

On the condition of anonymity, a local said that people cremated bodies at two places in Chausa block: At the crematorium in Chausa town and at Chausa Ghat. But the villagers of surrounding rural areas in a 35-kilometre radius prefer to carry their dead to the Ganga. There are two main reasons for this: Religious faith and poverty. As with the rest of the country during these times, the toll has also increased in the Chausa block of Buxar.

“On normal days, two or three bodies used to arrive at Chausa’s crematorium daily. But the number has ballooned to almost 60 during this current period; now that the number of dead in the town has increased, the number in the rural areas is bound to increase too. And so many more bodies are arriving at Chausa Ghat,” he added. Citing a lack of COVID-awareness, he said that people rarely get a checkup when they are unwell and so, succumb to a shortness of breath after 15 days or so. “Yesterday, villagers brought a body from Rajpur block (15 kilometres away) to Chausa Ghat. They wanted to push it into the Ganga, but the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) was present at the scene. He stopped the villagers and paid for the cremation and ensured it was carried out in front of him.”

He added, “At present, the level of water in the Ganga is low, and so bodies are placed on the banks of the rivers. Sometimes, wild animals desecrate the bodies. Yesterday, the district administrator removed around 71 bodies from the vicinity of Chausa Ghat. DNA samples were taken and the bodies were buried.”

Corroborating this account, KK Upadhyay, SDM for Buxar, said, “Look, these 71 bodies were not found together at one place. These bodies were found some distance apart on the banks of the Ganga. These bodies are also five to six days old. These bodies have come from villages like Gahmar in Ghazipur, where it is a tradition to carry the bodies into the Ganga. The bodies were so decomposed that after sampling their DNA, we buried them at the ghat itself. Yesterday, some villagers brought a body for funeral, which we cremated.”

The former head of the Gahmar village said that 25 bodies that were carried by the Ganga from Varanasi to Ganga Ghat in the village, and were found on the banks. “Yesterday, government officials of our area also came and strictly told our villagers not to push bodies into the river. After experiencing a fever, cough and cold, people in our village succumbed to breathing problems,” he said, adding, “The number of such deaths is around 12 per day.”

Of this, nearly a third flow into the Ganga and have drifted along towards Buxar. The prohibitively expensive cost of carrying out a cremation drives locals to push their dead into the river. The former village head added, “It is not just our village. This is seen in almost all the villages situated along the banks of the Ganges. People of villages like Birpur, Zamania, Bara etc push their dead into the river.”

Birpur’s JP Rai said, “Some of the corpses in Chausa belong to locals, but they also just float away from our area. Just yesterday, we pushed the body of one of our relatives into the Ganga. For the past 15 days this has been a common occurrence in Birpur village. The shortage of wood is one of the reasons we push bodies into the Ganga. Since it’s the summer and the speed of the Ganga isn’t very high, bodies flow towards the shore instead of washing down river.”

Health

SEC recommends Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin phase 2, 3 clinical trials on 2- to 18-year-olds

Editor — Sun, 16 May 2021 21:45:33 +0000

Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin was on Tuesday recommended by an expert panel for phase II/III clinical trial on those aged between two to 18 years, official sources said. The trial will take place in 525 subjects at various sites, including AIIMS, Delhi, AIIMS, Patna and Meditrina Institute of Medical Sciences, Nagpur. The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on COVID-19 of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) on Tuesday deliberated upon Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech’s application seeking permission to conduct phase II/III clinical trials to evaluate the safety, reactogenicity and immunogenicity of Covaxin jabs in children aged 2 to 18 years.

“After detailed deliberation, the committee recommended for conduct of proposed phase II/III clinical trial of whole virion inactivated coronavirus vaccine in the 2 to 18 years age group subject to the condition that the firm should submit the interim safety data of phase II clinical trial along with DSMB recommendations to the CDSCO before proceeding to phase III part of the study,” a source said.

Earlier the proposal was deliberated in the SEC meeting dated February 24 and the firm was asked to submit a revised clinical trial protocol.

Covaxin, indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research ICMR), is being used in adults in India’s ongoing COVID-19 vaccination drive.

Health

COVID-19 Fact Check: Double-masking causes no breathing problem, even if you have respiratory issues

Editor — Sun, 16 May 2021 21:45:32 +0000

Editor’s Note: COVID-19 Fact check is a series where we speak to doctors and ask them burning questions about everything from COVID-19 treatments, vaccines to diagnostics.

To quote the Mumbai Police, denim on denim is a fashion trend, but wearing two masks is a safety trend.

Double-masking is the hot new phrase in town. While WhatsApp groups and Instagram DMs are full of folks discussing pros and cons, surprisingly, not a lot of them are practising double-masking. Along with following physical distancing, regular hand hygiene, avoiding large indoor gatherings and getting vaccinated, double-masking is the need of the hour.

Dr Tushar Tayal from the Department of Internal Medicine, CK Birla Hospital, Gurgaon, told Firstpost, “With the various mutants looming closer to us, the next step should be better safety measures, which means double layering of masks.”

A study recently published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine says wearing two masks nearly doubles their effectiveness and helps keep the virus at bay. Another reason to double-mask is also to eliminate any gaps or ill-fitting areas around your face.

Megan Srinivas, an American Medical Association (AMA) member and an infectious diseases specialist at the University of North Carolina, said the fit of a mask is important because it creates an “enclosure around any orifice” that can discharge virus particles.

“That means covering your nose and mouth completely, but then doing it in a way that it is fitted against your skin”, says Srinivas.

Kitne Mask Safe Hai?
Poore 2 Sarkar!#MaskDoLe #TakingOnCorona pic.twitter.com/fZ2188PA2u

— Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) May 5, 2021

Tayal adds, “The layering not only gives one strengthened protection by being a barrier to the infectious germs, but also reduces the contagiousness of infections. Double masking also improves the fit and filtration, which keeps the person safe especially in public and low-ventilation spaces.”

Mask up x 2

But is there a right or wrong way to double-mask?

Srinivas says “you can’t wear two N95 masks or surgical masks on top of each other — it wouldn’t be useful.”

For the best protection against SARS-CoV-2, pairing a surgical mask under a cloth mask is the way to go. Alternatively, you can also use a cloth mask that has multiple layers of fabric or stick to wearing a single N95 mask without a valve. There are some mask combinations that you should absolutely avoid, as mentioned by the CDC, eg. Pairing two surgical masks, a KN95 or N95 mask worn along with any other type of mask. These combinations can either make it hard to breathe or have no effect on ensuring a secure mask fit.

Face masks are mandatory in all work & public places!

Do to fight #COVID19

Surgical mask + Double/Triple layered cloth mask
Press the mask tightly on the nose bridge
Ensure breathing isn’t blocked pic.twitter.com/MCBPIQAJlZ

— PIB India (@PIB_India) May 9, 2021

Some people refuse to wear masks because they feel they cannot breathe. However, Tayal says, “Masks are safe for everyone; while they can cause slight discomfort, they are the best course of action one can take during a pandemic. If one can’t wear a mask because of severe asthma or breathing distress, then they must protect themselves from COVID-19 by following standard COVID hygiene protocols.”

Dr Rohan Sequeira, Consultant General Medicine, Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre, told Firstpost double-masking causes no breathing issues.

“Double masking is for everybody; even if you have breathing problems, it won’t cause any issues. It is also increasingly recommended all over the world right now as double-masking is the new norm”, he says.

How can you improve the fit of a mask?

The JAMA study states that wearing any type of mask is better than not wearing a mask at all. A well-fitted mask works best to both block aerosol emissions as well as avoid exposure. An unknotted surgical mask or cloth mask can single-handedly block out around half of the aerosol projected during a cough simulated in the study. On the other hand, simply knotting and tucking a surgical mask can block around 77 percent of cough particles, while 85.4 percent can be blocked with a double mask – for example, wearing a cloth mask over a surgical mask.

And when two people double-mask (with a proper fit), the study found the receiver’s exposure to the virus is reduced by more than 95 percent when compared to people not wearing a mask.

To check if the mask if properly fitted around your mouth and nose, follow these steps:

Use a mask with a nose wire.Use a mask fitter or brace to prevent air from leaking out.Check for gaps by cupping your hands around the outer edges of the mask. Make sure no air escapes from the area near your eyes or from the sides of the mask.If the mask has a good fit, you will feel warm air filter through the front of the mask, and you may be able to see the mask material move in and out with every breath you take.You can also knot your three-ply face mask where the strings join the edge of the maskFold and tuck the unneeded material under the edges. insert videoCheck if you can see clearly with the mask on and ensure your vision is not obscured in any way.

When to replace a mask

Cloth masks, according to Jeremy Biggs, medical director for occupational medicine at the University of Utah Health, should be washed every day, particularly if they’re worn for an extended period of time. You can go several days without washing them if you only wear them for five to ten minutes daily.

#IndiaFightsCorona:

How to wear a mask

Wear mask so nasal clip is over the nose. External pleats should face downwards.
Open mask pleats so it covers mouth and nose.
Tie upper strings first. Then lower strings. There should be no gap between face & mask.#StaySafe pic.twitter.com/VtD5392Iby

— #IndiaFightsCorona (@COVIDNewsByMIB) May 9, 2021

If worn correctly, a medical mask will last for up to eight hours. If it gets damp in the middle, it must be discarded right away. If surgical masks are used for an extended period of time, they should be discarded every day. If used for a short period of time, they can be reused three or four times before being discarded.

Health

COVID-19 News Updates: Need to ramp up infrastructure as COVID-19 can re-emerge, says Centre

Editor — Sun, 16 May 2021 21:45:32 +0000

23:24 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Umar Khalid recovers from COVID-19 in Tihar jail

Former JNU student Umar Khalid, who was arrested in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots, has recovered from COVID-19 in Tihar jail and returned to his cell, officials said on Thursday.

A senior official said Khalid, 33, was isolated within the Tihar jail premises after he showed symptoms of COVID-19.

His RT-PCR test report came back positive on April 24.

Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after violence between supporters of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and those opposing it spiralled out of control, leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.

23:14 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Modi expected to join G7 summit in UK virtually

Narendra Modi is expected to join the UK-hosted G7 summit in Cornwall next month virtually, the British government said on Thursday after India’s Ministry of External Affairs announced that the prime minister would not be attending the meeting in person.

Modi was invited by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as India is one of three guest nations to the June 11-13 summit, alongside Australia and South Korea, as part of Britain’s Indo-Pacific foreign policy focus.

The guest leaders would be invited to take part in certain sessions of the Group of Seven meeting, presided by the UK and made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, US, and the European Union (EU).

22:39 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Human catastrophe unfolding in India, says Amnesty International

Governments across South Asia should treat as a warning the “human catastrophe” unfolding in India and Nepal, and immediately address healthcare shortages and strengthen their systems to respond to the rapid surge of COVID-19 cases, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

With India’s and Nepal’s healthcare systems struggling to cope with the massive surge in cases, the human rights organisation expressed its concern over the lack of preparedness in other countries in the region for the latest and the most deadly wave of coronavirus.

“Governments across South Asia must immediately address healthcare shortages and urgently strengthen their healthcare systems to respond to the rapid surge of COVID-19 cases in the region. Extremely low vaccination rates across South Asia have also left the region highly vulnerable, with pressing action needed at the global level to ensure more equitable access to vaccines,” a statement from Amnesty said.

22:32 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Bihar’s COVID-19 toll rises by 90; positivity rate falls substantially

The COVID-19 toll in Bihar rose by 90 on Thursday and climbed 3593, even as the Nitish Kumar government asserted that the situation was set to improve, pointing out a decline in the positivity rate since the beginning of this month.

“Corona shall lose, Bihar shall win”, was the refrain of an ebullient health minister Mangal Pandey who came out with a flurry of tweets underscoring statistics that indicated a let-up in the spread of the contagion during the second wave.

Pandey said the state’s positivity rate was now around eight percent, a drop of four percent compared with a week ago and a nearly seven percent decline since May 01 when it was in excess of 15 percent.

Notably, a full lockdown was imposed in the state for the period May 05-15 in a bid to put brakes on the explosive rate at which the contagion had been spreading of late.

22:22 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Haryana to float global tenders to procure COVID-19 vaccines

Global tenders would be floated by the Haryana government for procurement of COVID-19 vaccines to ensure that all those above 18 in the state are inoculated, Health Minister Anil Vij said on Thursday.

During the past few weeks, COVID cases in Haryana have witnessed a surge. The number of total active cases in the state, as on 12 May, was 1,07,058.

In a tweet, Vij said, “Haryana will float Global tenders to purchase Corona Vaccine for people of Haryana so that free vaccination could be provided to every 18+ citizens of the State at the earliest.”

States like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Delhi have already opted for global tenders to meet their needs.

22:02 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Andhra Pradesh govt floats global tender for 1 cr COVID vaccines

The Andhra Pradesh government on Thursday floated a global tender for procurement of Covid-19 vaccine, from foreign producers, sufficient to inoculate one crore people. Global firms have been given time till June 3 to submit their bids, according to Principal Secretary (Health) Anil Kumar Singhal.

“Some could be single-dose and some double-dose vaccine. Based on the bids, we will make the purchase (of a number of doses) accordingly,” Anil said.

In the tender notification, the AP Medical Services and Infrastructure Development Corporation said the vaccines to be supplied must be in accordance with the ICMR guidelines.

The bidder having own manufacturing license should hold a valid WHO Good Manufacturing Practice certificate issued by the licensing authorities from where the product is being manufactured, it said.

-PTI

21:55 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Manipur BJP chief S Tikendra Singh dies of COVID

Manipur BJP president S Tikendra Singh who had been undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at a hospital in Imphal passed away on Thursday evening. He was 69. He had tested positive for the virus on April 27.

Chief Minister N Biren Singh while informing about the death tweeted, “Im at a loss of word to learn that Prof S Tiken Singh, president BJP Manipur, has passed away just a while ago.

“We have lost a stalwart of BJP in Manipur who have dedicated his life for the service of people and the party.My deepest condolences to the bereaved family. May your soul rest in peace Oja.” BJP President J P Nadda and Union minister Kiren Rijiju have expressed profound grief over death of Manipur party head.

A Retired Professor, who have worked tirelessly with selfless devotion towards the ideology of BJP, was loved by one and all in Manipur, Biren Singh wrote on his official Facebook account. Singh was appointed as president of the BJP Manipur unit in June 2020.

-PTI

21:47 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Gujarat adds 10,742 COVID cases; 109 die, 15,269 recover

Gujarat reported 10,742 new COVID-19 cases and 109 deaths on Thursday, taking its overall infection tally to 7,25,353 and fatality count to 8,840, the health department said. Of the 109 fatalities, 16 were reported in Ahmedabad district, 14 in Surat, 10 in Vadodara and nine in Rajkot district, it said.

A total of 2,878 new cases were recorded in Ahmedabad city alone, followed by 776 in Surat city, 650 in Vadodara city and 461 in Vadodara district, 399 in Mehsana, 359 in Rajkot city and 332 in Rajkot district.

As many as 15,269 persons recovered from the infection and got discharge during the day. While the recovery count has gone up to 5,93,666, the recovery rate now stands at 81.85 per cent, the department said. Gujarat now has 1,22,847 active cases, of which, 796 are on ventilator.

21:41 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

North Western Railways reduces timing of 38 passenger reservation system offices

The North Western Railways has reduced the timing of 38 passenger reservation system offices due to less traffic amid COVID-19 triggered lockdown imposed by the state government.

The reservation window will open in a single shift from May 15 in Ajmer, Jaipur and Jodhpur divisions and second shift operation is being temporarily closed, an official statement said.

The second shift of 38 passenger reservation system offices will be temporarily stopped and the offices will be operate in a single shift till 2.00 pm, it said.

21:32 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Maharashtra reports 42,582 COVID-19 cases, 850 deaths

Maharashtra reported 42,582 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, a drop of nearly 4,200 infections from a day ago, while 850 more patients succumbed to the disease, the state health department said, reports PTI.

With the addition of 42,582 COVID-19 cases, down from 46,781 on Wednesday, the state’s caseload increased to 52,69,292, while the death toll reached 78,857, it said. On Tuesday, Maharashtra had reported 40,956 COVID-19 cases, 793 deaths and 71,966 recoveries.

Of the 850 fatalities, 409 had occurred in the past 48 hours, 160 last week and the rest 281 before the last week but were added to the toll on Thursday, the department said. Once again, recoveries outnumbered new cases.

21:24 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Meghalaya govt extends lockdown in East Khasi Hills district till 24 May

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma Thursday announced the extension of lockdown in the worst-affected East Khasi Hills district till 24 May. The decision to extend the lockdown for another week was taken following a review of the COVID-19 situation.

The state government on May 8 had extended the lockdown in East Khasi Hills district till 17 May. To curb the spread of the contagion, a complete lockdown had been imposed in the district from 8 pm of May 5 to 5 am of May 10. State capital Shillong is located in East Khasi Hills district.

21:00 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

WHO and US FDA approved COVID-19 vaccines can come to India, says Centre

The Centre on Thursday reiterated that any vaccine which is approved by United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) can come to India. The announcement was made at a press conference by NITI Aayog member VK Paul, who also heads the national expert group on vaccines.

“Import license will be granted within 1-2 days. No import license is pending,” Dr Paul said. Last month, the central government had fast-tracked approvals for Covid-19 vaccines cleared for use in the US, the UK, the European Union and Japan.

20:50 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

French embassy procured Moderna vaccine sans nod to it, claims NCP leader

Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Thursday claimed that the French embassy in India has procured Moderna anti-coronavirus vaccine and it is being administered to its nationals at Navi Mumbai even as only three other vaccines are permitted in the country.

The Minority Affairs Minister sought to know from the Centre how a “non-permitted” vaccine is allowed to be administered to the residents of France and their relatives living. Malik, who is NCP’s national spokesperson, also asked why the Centre cannot procure the vaccine for the people of India if the French Embassy can.

20:34 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Asaram seeks bail for Ayurvedic treatment, HC hearing adjourned till next week

Self-styled godman Asaram will now have to wait at least a week before the Rajasthan High Court decides if he can be given interim bail for medical treatment through Ayurveda in Haridwar. For now, the rape convict who was admitted at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Jodhpur after being infected with coronavirus will continue his treatment there.

The division bench of Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Devendra Kachhawaha on Thursday adjourned the hearing on the bail plea till May 21, summoning a fresh medical report. The adjournment followed submission of his medical report by the AIIMS, advising the completion of his treatment for COVID-19 and his isolation.

20:21 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

15 more COVID-19 patients die at Goa hospital, HC told

Fifteen more COVID-19 patients died at the Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in the early hours of Thursday, the state government told the Bombay

High Court, two days after 26 coronavirus patients had succumbed at the same facility. The Goa bench of the HC said state authorities told it some of the casualties may have taken place due to “logistical issues” related to connecting oxygen cylinders to the manifold (group of large gas cylinders) that resulted in interruption and drop in pressure in supply lines of oxygen to patients.

The HC observed that despite its order on providing medical oxygen to COVID-19 patients at the GMCH, there were 15 deaths during the dark hours of 2 am and 6 am in the government-run facility on Thursday.

PTI

20:18 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Delhi HC criticises ‘irritating’ dialer tune asking people to get vaccinated when there is no vaccination

The dialer tune message of the Centre asking people to get vaccinated was criticised by the Delhi High Court which on Thursday said the “irritating” message was being played for “we don’t know how long” asking people to get the jab when there was not enough vaccine. “You have been playing that one irritating message on the phone whenever one makes a call, for we do not know how long, that you (people) should have the vaccination, when you (Centre) don’t have enough vaccine.

“You are not vaccinating people, but you still say that vaccination lagavaiye (get vaccinated). Kaun lagayega vaccination (who will get vaccinated), when there is no vaccination. What is the point of the message,” a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said. “You should give it to everyone. Even if you are going to take money, give it. That is what even children are saying,” the bench said and added that the government needs to be “innovative” in such things.

PTI

20:07 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Kejriwal urges Centre to directly procure vaccines from foreign companies

A very welcome step by Central govt. It will help in ramping up prodn.

I also urge Centre to directly procure vaccines from foreign companies rather than each state bidding against each other in international mkt https://t.co/arqGWR4fKM

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) May 13, 2021

20:05 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Karnataka to float global tender for two crore COVID-19 vaccines

The Karnataka government on Thursday announced floating a global tender for procuring two crore COVID-19 vaccines owing to supply shortage.Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa said a Task Force has been set up to oversee the preparation for a probable third wave of COVID-19.

“The state has placed a purchase order for three crore doses of vaccines, two crore doses of Covishield and one crore doses of Covaxin. We are floating global tenders for an additional two crores,” Yediyurappa told reporters.

19:54 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Indrani Mukerjea, COVID-19 positive, seeks interim bail on health ground

Indrani Mukerjea, the prime accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, has sought interim bail on health grounds after testing COVID-19 positive. The prosecution on Thursday submitted its reply opposing her bail plea before special CBl court judge JC Jagadale. The court noted that it has received Mukerjea’s written submissions on the bail alongwith a letter from the Byculla jail in central Mumbai, where she is currently lodged.

Mukerjea had tested coronavirus positive in the last week of April, following which, she had written to the court seeking interim bail on health grounds.

PTI

19:45 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Out of Covaxin, Delhi govt urges SII o ‘come to rescue’ and provide Covishield

After Bharat Biotech said it cannot supply more doses of Covaxin to Delhi, the city government wrote to the Serum Institute of India (SII) asking it to “come to its rescue”, saying it has limited stock of Covishield for 18 to 44 years which will finish in one week. To this, the SII said they are doing their best to meet countrywide vaccine requirements, official sources told news agency PTI.

In a letter to the SII, Director of Family Welfare, Delhi Government, Dr Monika Rana said, “We rely on your support for provision of sufficient quantities of vaccine in a time-bound manner.” “Delhi has a limited stock of Covishield for 18 to 44 years which will finish in one week and vaccination centres will have to be closed due to non-availability of vaccines,” she said. “In order to prevent this, you are requested to come to our rescue and provide for more vaccine immediately,” the letter read.

19:41 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Restore frequency of cargo flights, India tells China

India has asked China to help stop the sharp increase in prices of essential medical supplies being procured from Chinese manufacturers by private Indian traders to deal with the COVID-19 surge in the country and restore the normal frequency of cargo flight services to maintain a steady supply chain. Soaring prices of medical supplies like oxygen concentrators and disruption of cargo flights to India are slowing arrivals of medical goods, India’s Consul General to Hong Kong Priyanka Chauhan said.

What I would like to say is that our expectation at this point is that the supply chain should remain open and product prices should remain stable, Chauhan said in an interview with the South China Morning Post on Wednesday.

PTI

19:35 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Facebook to roll out new campaign in India against COVID-related misinformation

Facebook on Thursday said it will roll out a new campaign in India in the coming weeks to “educate and inform people” about how to detect misinformation related to COVID-19, and encourage users to check the information they receive against an authentic source. The social networking giant has removed over 12 million pieces of “harmful” misinformation on COVID-19 globally from Instagram and its own platform during the pandemic, including falsehoods about approved vaccines.

It also put warning labels on over 167 million posts that were marked as false by third-party fact checkers. The social media giant, which counts India among its biggest markets, said it is working on connecting people to accurate sources, and tackle misinformation, especially about the COVID-19 pandemic.

PTI

19:22 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Make GST zero for COVID-19 vaccines, drugs, Tamil Nadu CM tells Modi

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring the Goods and Services Tax for COVID-19 vaccines and drugs to zero level. State governments were procuring COVID-19 vaccines and drugs to treat the patients and the GST for such supplies should be made zero, he said.

At a time when the tax revenue of states have seen a steep decline on account of economic growth taking a hit in view of the pandemic, measures including release of GST compensation should be taken up by the Centre to help the state governments.

PTI

19:09 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Mixing COVID-19 vaccine doses safe but increases side effects: UK study

Mixing the doses of different types of two-dose coronavirus vaccines has been found to be safe but increased the frequency of mild to moderate symptoms, a new UK study has found, reports PTI.

The COM-COV study, led by the University of Oxford, has been investigating the immune responses of volunteers given a dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine followed by the Pfizer/BioNTech jab, and vice versa, since February.

In its report for the medical journal Lancet’ on Wednesday, the research team said adverse reactions from this mix and match approach were short-lived and there were no other safety concerns.

The findings at this stage are limited to reactogenicity findings, or how people feel after the vaccine, and not the immunogenicity findings, that is how well the mixed dosing worked at inducing an immune response, work on which remains ongoing.

18:47 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Andhra Pradesh adds 22,399 new cases to COVID

For the first time, the number of active coronavirus cases crossed the two-lakh mark in Andhra Pradesh, touching 2,01,042, as the state added 22,399 fresh positives in 24 hours ending 9 am on Thursday. The latest bulletin said 18,638 Covid-19 patients had recovered and 89 others succumbed in a day.

The state Covid-19 chart now showed 13,66,785 total positives, 11,56,666 recoveries and 9,077 deaths.

In 24 hours, East Godavari district reported the highest 3,372, Chittoor 2,646, Guntur 2,141, Anantapuramu 2,080 and Visakhapatnam 2,064 new cases.

18:43 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

216 cr vaccine doses to be available in 5 months between Aug-Dec, enough to cover all: Centre

As states grapple with a shortage of coronavirus vaccines, the Centre on Thursday said that over two billion doses will be made available in the country in five months between August and December, enough to vaccinate the entire population.

“Two billion doses (216 crore) will be made in the country in five months for India and for people of India. Vaccine will be available for all as we move forward,” Niti Ayog Member V K Paul said during a press briefing on the COVID-19 situation, adding by the first quarter of the next year, the number is likely to be three billion.

He estimated that between August to December, production of 75 crore doses of Covishield is estimated, while 55 cores doses of Covaxin will be made available. Further, Biological E is expected to produce 30 crore doses, Zydus Cadila 5 crore, Serum Institute of India 20 crore doses of Novavax, and Bharat Biotech 10 crore doses of its nasal vaccine, while Gennova will make available 6 crore doses and Sputnik V 15.6 crore doses.

PTI

18:33 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Delhi left with 2-3 days’ vaccine stock for 45+ age group, key workers: Atishi

AAP leader Atishi Thursday said Delhi is left with just two-three days’ stock of coronavirus vaccines for those above 45, and key workers. For the 18-44 age group, the capital has eight days of Covishield doses available, she said. “Delhi currently has three days of Covaxin and two days of Covishield stock for those above 45, and healthcare and frontline workers. We request the government to make more doses available for this category,” she said. Delhi has so far got 43.20 lakh doses for 45-plus, and healthcare and frontline workers, of which 40.29 lakh have been utilised, Atishi said.

PTI

18:26 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Modi govt’s Hindutva outlook, inability to rely on science behind ‘disastrous’ handling of COVID: CPM

The latest editorial of CPM mouthpiece People’s Democracy has blamed the Narendra Modi government’s “disastrous” handling of the COVID-19 pandemic to its “Hindutva outlook” and inability to rely on science. The editorial questioned the government on why it failed to comply with the three-member bench of the Supreme Court which had asked it to reconsider the existing vaccination policy and suggested that it decide on the allocation of vaccines to states and the delivery schedule, instead of leaving it to them to negotiate with the two vaccine manufacturing companies.

“Faced with the fiasco of the vaccine rollout and the rate of vaccination falling to the extent of 60 percent in the states in the last fortnight, any sensible government would have seized the opportunity provided by the Supreme Court intervention to rework its vaccination programme. But this is not a sensible government it is a regime blinkered by its neo-liberal and Hindutva nostrums,” the editorial said.

PTI

18:15 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Kerala CM urges Centre to immediately supply 300 MT of oxygen

The Kerala government on Thursday urged the Centre to immediately rush at least 300 MT oxygen from neighbouring storage points to augment the storage in hospitals in the wake of the impending cyclonic storm. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the India Meteorological Department has issued a cyclonic storm warning forecasting heavy rain and winds in parts of the state on 14 and 15 May.

PTI

18:08 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Hardeep Singh Puri, Shashi Tharoor in war of words over vaccine policy

Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor sparred on Twitter, with the BJP leader accusing Congress leaders of fuelling vaccine hesitancy and Tharoor hitting back, saying when will the Centre take responsibility for its “manifest failures” of policy rather than pointing fingers at the Opposition.

Puri, in a series of tweets on Wednesday, said some of Congress leaders like Shashi Tharoor are betraying an almost “childish stubbornness” in admitting their fault about India’s vaccine policy.The entire pack through statements and tweets fuelled vaccine hesitancy, Puri alleged.

Tagging one of Puri’s tweets, Tharoor said on Thursday, “Let me keep it simple: 1. Is the vaccine shortage because of Congress’ tweets? 2. Did GOI fail to order enough vaccines because of my tweets? 3. Is differential pricing in May the result of my pointing out on Jan 3 that that Phase 3 trials of Covaxin were not complete?”. In short, when will the BJP government take responsibility for its “manifest failures of policy and management” rather than pointing fingers at the Opposition in a vain attempt to divert attention from its own poor performance, the Congress leader asked on Twitter.

Let me keep it simple:
1. Is the vaccine shortage because of Congress’ tweets?
2. Did GOI fail to order enough vaccines because of my tweets?
3. Is differential pricing inMay the result of my pointing out on Jan3 that that Phase3 trials of Covaxin were not complete? @HardeepSPuri https://t.co/eLfU51tTLh

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) May 13, 2021

17:57 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Vaccination for journalists: Not enough vaccine stock, says Maharashtra govt

Asked about the demand, Health Minister Rajesh Tope said, “There is no sufficient stock of vaccine doses and the available stock is going to be used for the above-45 age group because their inoculation can not be delayed further. We are being told that over one crore Covishield vials would be available from 20 May onwards. If we get vials in such a large quantity, we can discuss the proposal of vaccinating journalists under the frontline workers category,” he told reporters.

PTI

17:53 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Karnataka SSLC exams postponed

Karnataka Primary and Secondary Education Minister S Suresh Kumar on Thursday said the class 10 examinations scheduled to commence from 21 June has been postponed due to the spike in COVID-19 cases in the state. The increasing coronavirus cases in the state coupled with the concerns of parents, students and many school associations has resulted in this decision, the Minister’s office said in a statement quoting him. A suitable call will be taken after the second wave of COVID-19 dies down, it said.

The Minister also said that the revised dates will be announced much ahead of schedule, as he appealed to the students not to get disheartened and continue with their preparations for the exams.

PTI

17:42 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Modi to interact with DMs of 100 high COVID-19 caseload districts

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will interact with district magistrates of 100 districts with high caseloads of COVID-19 infections in two meetings on 18 and 20 May , government sources told news agency PTI on Thursday. While DMs of 46 districts from nine states will be part of the first meeting, those from 54 districts from 10 states will attend the second meeting, they said, adding that respective chief ministers will be present in these interactions.

This will be the first such interaction that the prime minister will have with top district-level administrative officers on the COVID-19 situation.

17:36 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Pfizer, Moderna, J&J vaccines effective against B1617 variant, says top US health official

The COVID-19 vaccines approved by the United States like Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson have effectiveness against the B1617 variant of the virus that is predominant in India, which is experiencing one of the worst outbreaks of the pandemic, a top American health official said. The observation is based on the latest data about the variant and the three major vaccines approved by the United States, said Dr Francis Collins, Director of the National Institute of Science.

Read full report here

17:31 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

EC defers Legislative Council polls in nine seats in AP, Telangana

The Election Commission on Thursday deferred legislative Council polls in nine seats in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana due to the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The term of three members of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council and six members of the Telangana Legislative Council, elected by members of their respective legislative assemblies (MLAs), are expiring on 31 May and 3 June, respectively, the commission said in a statement.

“The commission has reviewed the matter today (Thursday) and has decided that due to outbreak of the second wave of COVID-19 in the country, it would not be appropriate to hold biennial election to the legislative councils of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana respectively till the pandemic situation significantly improves and conditions become conducive to hold these biennial elections,” the poll panel said. The Election Commission said it will take a decision in the matter at an “appropriate time in the future” after taking inputs from the states concerned and assessing the pandemic situation from mandated bodies such as the national and state disaster management authorities.

PTI

17:09 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Health ministry increases gap between two Covishield doses to12-16 weeks

Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said the gap between two Covishield doses has been increased to 12-16 weeks from the current 6-8 weeks based on the COVID working group’s recommendations after analysing emerging evidence.

The move comes amid several states reporting shortage of vaccines. Several states and UTs including Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana have decided to opt for global tenders for procurement of anti-coronavirus shots with the domestic supply falling short to meet the rising demand. Maharashtra and Karnataka have halted the vaccination drive for 18-44 age group.

Gap between 2 doses of #CovishieldVaccine has been increased to 12-16 weeks from 6-8 weeks currently.

Decision has been taken based on recommendations given by COVID working group after analysing emerging evidence.@PMOIndia @MoHFW_INDIA #Unite2FightCorona pic.twitter.com/kRbbjxGKSJ

— Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) May 13, 2021

16:55 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

35.6 crore vaccine doses procured so far, says VK Paul

Centre procured 35.6 crore vaccine doses for the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination drive so far and additional 16 cr doses are in the pipeline (direct purchase) to states, private hospitals, said DR VK Paul.

We are in talks with Pfizer, J&J and Moderna to work with Indian companies and supply vaccines to us. We are inviting them to work with us, The Hindu quotes Paul as saying.

16:47 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Sputnik V likely to be available in market next week, says Centre

“Sputnik V vaccine has arrived in India. I’m happy to say that we’re hopeful that it’ll be available in the market next week. We’re hopeful that the sale of the limited supply that has come from there (Russia), will begin next week,” news agency ANI quotes Dr VK Paul as saying.

Further supply will also follow, the senior government official said, adding that Sputnik V will be produced in India from July onwards and it is estimated that 15.6 crore doses will be manufactured in that period.

#Sputnik vaccine has arrived in India. I’m happy to say that we’re hopeful that it’ll be available in the market next week. We’re hopeful that the sale of the limited supply that has come from there (Russia), will begin next week: Dr VK Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog#COVID19 pic.twitter.com/OGUTHvKCr9

— ANI (@ANI) May 13, 2021

16:34 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

One-third population above 45 yrs of age has received at least one vaccines dose, says VK Paul

Total of 17.72 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered till now, ANI quotes Agarwal as saying. Dr VK Paul, Member (Health) NITI Aayog, said of the nearly 34 crore population above the age of 45 years, one-third has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. In Himachal Pardesh this percentage stands at this 69, 58% in Rajasthan and 54% percent of population above age of 45 in Uttarakhand has received at least one vaccine dose, he says. Paul added that 50 percent of those who were due to get second dose have received it.

16:26 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

187 districts showing continuous decline in cases in last two weeks, says health ministry

During a press briefing on the COVID-19 situation, the health ministry said 12 states have more than one lakh active cases while eight states have over 50,000 cases, reports News18. According to ANI, Joint secretary in the ministry Lav Agarwal said 187 districts have shown a continued decline in cases since last two weeks.

16:08 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

SC directs Centre, three state govts to provide dry ration to migrant workers in NCR

The Supreme Court issues directions to the Centre and governments of Delhi,Uttar Pradesh and Haryana to provide dry ration to migrant workers in the NCR under Atma Nirbhar Bharat Scheme or any other scheme utilising the Public Distribution System, reports The Leaflet. According to the court’s order, authorities will not insists on providing dry ration to the migrant workers.

According to LiveLaw, the apex court also directs the governments of Delhi, UP and Haryana (for districts in NCR) to open community kitchens for stranded migrant workers and their families and to ensure adequate transport for the migrant workers wanting to return home.

SC orders Centre, Delhi, UP, Haryana to provide dry ration to migrant workers in NCR under Atma Nirbhar Bharat Scheme or any other scheme utilising the PDS. While providing dry ration the authorities will not insist on an identity card. pic.twitter.com/JKI69FP0nC

— The Leaflet (@TheLeaflet_in) May 13, 2021

16:00 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Three high court judges, 34 judicial officers lost their lives battling COVID, says CJI NV Ramana

Chief Justice of India NV Ramana on Thursday said 34 judicial officers and three high court judges have lost their life battling the coronavirus pandemic. “The first employee of the SC Registry was reported COVID positive on 27 April 2020. Approximately 800 Registry staff have tested positive. Six Registrars and 10 ARs have tested positive at different times. Unfortunately, we lost three of our officials to COVID-19, ” The Leaflet quotes the CJI as saying. The CHI further said, that 2768 judicial officers and 106 judges of High Courts have tested positive so far. “We are yet to receive the data from two major High Courts. 34 Judicial Officers and three Judges of the High Court have lost their life, battling this pandemic,” he said.

15:41 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Delhi records 10,489 new cases, 308 deaths

Delhi reports 10,489 new COVID-19 cases and 308 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of coronavirus infections reported in the National Capital so far to 13,72,475 and toll to 20,618. According to the health bulletin there are 77717 active cases and the positivity rate is 14.24 percent.

Delhi reports 10,489 new #COVID19 cases, 15,189 recoveries and 308 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Total cases 13,72,475
Total recoveries 12,74,140
Death toll 20,618

Active cases 77,717 pic.twitter.com/BSTUnUfbRK

— ANI (@ANI) May 13, 2021

15:34 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Karnataka govt orders ministers to deposit one year’s salary to COVID Relief Fund

The Karnataka government has ordered depositing one-year salary of State Ministers in the COVID Relief Fund. This was decided by the State Cabinet a few days ago. The order was issued on 11 May and would come into effect retrospectively from 1 May for a year. The order was given on the direction of Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa.

PTI

15:20 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Chhattisgarh cancels tenders for new Assembly building

In view of a surge in COVID-19 cases, the Chhattisgarh government on Thursday cancelled tenders for the construction of the new Assembly building and also stopped work on major projects in the state. It has also decided to take more stringent measures to prevent the infection from spreading.

Construction work of the new governor’s house, Assembly house, chief minister’s house, residences of ministers and senior officers, new circuit house under in the ‘Nava Raipur’ area (New Raipur) has now been stopped with immediate effect, a statement issued by the state government said. The ‘bhoomi pujan’ (ground breaking ceremony) for these works was done on 25 November, 2019.

“Our citizens – our priority. Foundation stone for the construction of new assembly building, Raj Bhavan, Chief Minister’s residence, residence of ministers and senior officials, new circuit house was laid before start of Corona. Today, all these construction works have been stopped in these times of crisis,” Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel tweeted.

हमारे नागरिक-हमारी प्राथमिकता

कोरोना काल से पहले प्रदेश में नए विधानसभा भवन, राजभवन, मुख्यमंत्री निवास, मंत्रीगणों व वरिष्ठ अधिकारियों के आवास, नये सर्किट हाउस इत्यादि के निर्माण कार्य का शिलान्यास किया गया था।

आज संकट के समय में इन सभी निर्माण कार्य पर रोक लगाई जाती है।

— Bhupesh Baghel (@bhupeshbaghel) May 13, 2021

15:04 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Goa receives 32,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses for 18-44 age group

The Goa government will soon start COVID-19 vaccination for people in the age group of 18 to 44, as the first lot of vaccines arrived in the state on Thursday, a senior health department official said. Speaking to PTI, director of Health Services Dr Jose D’Sa said a first lot of 32,000 vaccine doses from Pune-based

Serum Institute of India (SII) had arrived in the state during the day. The government will work out a plan on how to carry out the vaccination at state-run facilities, he said.

PTI

14:47 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Bihar extends lockdown till 25 May

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar announced the decision to extend lockdown in the state till 25 May. “The status of the lockdown implemented in Bihar was reviewed today along with ministers and officials. The positive effect of the lockdown is visible. Therefore, it has been decided to extend the lockdown in Bihar for the next 10 days i.e. from 16 to 25 May 2021,” the chief minister said on Twitter.

आज सहयोगी मंत्रीगण एवं पदाधिकारियों के साथ बिहार में लागू लॉकडाउन की स्थिति की समीक्षा की गयी। लॉकडाउन का सकारात्मक प्रभाव दिख रहा है। अतः बिहार में अगले 10 दिनों अर्थात 16 से 25 मई, 2021 तक लॉकडाउन को विस्तारित करने का निर्णय लिया गया है।

— Nitish Kumar (@NitishKumar) May 13, 2021

14:34 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Karnataka HC pulls up state govt for not reserving 70% vaccines for second dose

The Karnataka High Court on Thursday pulled up the state and Central government over the COVID-19 vaccination drive, particularly over those who have got the first dose not receiving their second dose, reports Bar&Bench. A Bench of Chief Justice AS Oka and Justice Aravind Kumar said the Karnataka government should come clean on the issue and publish the data on availability of vaccines on a website.

The bench also slammed the state government for not reserving 70 percent vaccines for second dose as per the Centre’s guidelines. The Court was also critical of the Centre’ s vaccine policy and osberved that if second dose of vaccine is not given on time, it will be a “huge national waste”.

14:24 (IST)

UPSC postpones 27 June civil services preliminary exam; to be held on 10 Oct

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on Thursday postponed the civil services preliminary examination, scheduled to be held in June, to 10 October in view of the alarming COVID situation. The commission conducts civil services examination annually in three stages — preliminary, main and interview — to select officers of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) among others.

“Due to the prevailing conditions caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the Union Public Service Commission has deferred the civil services (preliminary) examination, 2021, which was scheduled to be held on 27 June, 2021. Now, this examination will be held on 10 October, 2021,” a statement issued by the commission said.

14:13 (IST)

COVID-19 News Live Updates

Arunachal Pradesh releases over Rs 66 crore for COVID-related expenses

The Arunachal Pradesh government has released an amount of over Rs 66 crore to the Health department and all deputy commissioners of the district

for COVID-19 related expenses. Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Wednesday said that the amount has been released from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) for effective Covid management in the state.

“Pursuant to decision of State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA), for effective management of #COVID19, Rs 66.0029 crores of SDRF has been released to Health Department and all Deputy Commissioners for Covid related expenses,” Khandu tweeted.

COVID-19 News LATEST Updates: The Andhra Pradesh government on Thursday floated a global tender for procurement of Covid-19 vaccine, from foreign producers, sufficient to inoculate one crore people

The Centre on Thursday reiterated that any vaccine which is approved by United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) can come to India.

As per reports the Centre on Thursday said that Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine had arrived in India and would be available “in the market next week”. NITI Aayog (Health) member Dr VK Paul said that the “sale of the limited supply that has come from Russia will begin next week”.

The Election Commission on Thursday deferred legislative Council polls in nine seats in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana due to the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

The term of three members of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council and six members of the Telangana Legislative Council, elected by members of their respective legislative assemblies (MLAs), are expiring on 31 May and 3 June, respectively, the commission said in a statement.

The Sputnik V vaccine has arrived in India and we are hopeful that it’ll be available in the market next week, said Dr VK Paul.

The Supreme Court issues directions to the Centre and governments of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana to provide dry ration to migrant workers in the NCR under Atma Nirbhar Bharat Scheme or any other scheme utilising the Public Distribution System, said reports. According to the court’s order, authorities will not insists on providing dry ration to the migrant workers.

In view of a surge in COVID-19 cases, the Chhattisgarh government on Thursday cancelled tenders for the construction of the new Assembly building and also stopped work on major projects in the state.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar announced the decision to extend lockdown in the state till 25 May.

A Bench of Chief Justice AS Oka and Justice Aravind Kumar said the Karnataka government should come clean on the issue and publish the data on availability of vaccines on a website.

The bench also slammed the state government for not reserving 70 percent vaccines for second dose as per the Centre’s guidelines.

“We will provide education free of cost to the children who have lost their parents (to COVID-19). They will be provided free ration even if they are not eligible for it,” said Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

The Maharashtra government on Thursday extended the lockdown-like restrictions in the state till 1 June to break the chain of COVID-19.

National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) has recommended increasing the gap between two doses of Covishield vaccine to 12-16 weeks, sources told PTI. The panel also suggested that pregnant women may be offered the choice to take any COVID-19 vaccine and that lactating women can be inoculated any time after delivery.

During the trial, the vaccine will be administered through muscles in two doses in a gap of 28 days, the Centre said.

The Drug Controller General of India on Thursday gave permission to Bharat Biotech to conduct clinical trials of Covaxin on children belonging to the age group of 2 to 18 years.

The decision comes after the subject expert committee recommended the permission in favour of Bharat Biotech. The permission has been granted after “careful examination”, the government said.

The active caseload comprises 37.10 lakh or 15.87 percent of the country’s total infections.

Following a state cabinet meeting on Wednesday, health minister Rajesh Tope said that the state government would divert the stock it has purchased for inoculation of people between 18 and 44 to ensure that those who require their second dose get it on time.

The COVID-19 inoculation drive for the 18-44 years age group in Mumbai has been suspended until further orders, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) announced on Wednesday evening.

The announcement followed the Maharashtra government’s decision to suspend inoculation for this category and divert the vaccine stock for the above 45 years age group due to
paucity of doses.

The BMC earlier in the day also issued revised guidelines allowing walk-in vaccination in Mumbai for certain categories for three days.

Those above 60 years and waiting for a second dose of Covishield vaccine, those still to get a second dose of Covaxin, and the disabled persons can opt for walk-in vaccination from Monday to Wednesday, it said.

But from Thursday to Saturday vaccination would take place only by prior appointment through Co-WIN app, and the centres will remain closed on Sunday, it said.

But municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, however, stated that the walk-in vaccination will be allowed only for three days, that is from 17-19 May, though the BMC
guidelines did not mention any such specific period.

Environment minister Aaditya Thackeray, who is also guardian minister for Mumbai suburban district, gave the same information as Chahal. “Looking at the limited supply of vaccines, it is crucial that we complete the prescribed second shot in the coming week for those who have gone past the prescribed gap between two vaccines,” Thackeray tweeted.

Since last week, the civic body has made prior registration mandatory for the above 45 years category after witnessing chaotic scenes at a BKC inoculation centre and
overcrowding at several other centres.

Walk-in was allowed only for those due for second dose of Covaxin besides healthcare and frontline workers.

As per the civic body’s data, so far 27,86,048 vaccine jabs have been administered in the city, including 6,92,620 second doses. 39,029 persons in 18-44 years age group have
received the jabs.

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Eli Lilly inks pacts for COVID-19 drug Baricitinib with Torrent Pharma, Dr Reddy’s and MSN Labs

Editor — Sun, 16 May 2021 21:45:32 +0000

New Delhi: Drug firm Eli Lilly and Company on Thursday said it has inked voluntary licensing agreements with three Indian drug firms – Torrent Pharmaceuticals, Dr Reddy’s and MSN Laboratories – to expedite the availability of Baricitinib for treatment of COVID-19 patients in India.

The company has issued additional royalty-free, non-exclusive voluntary licenses to Dr Reddy’s, MSN Laboratories, and Torrent Pharmaceuticals, who will be collaborating with Lilly to accelerate and expand the availability of Baricitinib in India, Eli Lilly and Company said in a statement.

“These three additional voluntary licensing agreements will ensure high-quality manufacturing and accessibility of Baricitinib during this pandemic improving the local treatment options available to positively impact the lives of people who are currently battling COVID-19 in India,” it added.

The company on Monday had announced signing voluntary licensing agreements with Sun Pharma, Cipla and Lupin.

Eli Lilly and Company has received permission for restricted emergency use by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), for Baricitinib to be used in combination with Remdesivir for the treatment of suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in hospitalised adults requiring supplemental oxygen, invasive mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, the statement said.

“Lilly is committed to supporting India in this healthcare challenge through our innovative and effective portfolio of breakthrough medicines,” Luca Visini, Managing Director, India Subcontinent, Lilly India said.

This is in addition to the donations being offered by Lilly to the Indian government, he added.

“We will continue to explore other possible initiatives to support patients and the healthcare system in India, Visini said.

Meanwhile, Eli Lilly and Company continue to engage in active dialogue with the regulatory authorities and government in India to donate its anti-COVID-19 treatments, including neutralising antibodies, the statement said.

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COVID-19 tracker, 13 May: India records over 4,000 deaths for second straight day; 3,62,727 fresh cases in past 24 hrs

Editor — Sun, 16 May 2021 21:45:32 +0000

On Thursday, India recorded over 4,000 COVID-19 deaths for the second consecutive day.

With 4,120 deaths in the last 24 hours, the toll rose to 2,58,317, according to the Union health ministry’s data.

On Wednesday, the country saw a record 4,205 deaths due to COVID-19.

The number of COVID-19 deaths have been on an upward trend since the second wave hit in the first week of April.

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The number of new cases showed a minuscule decline on Thursday, with 3,62,727 new infections being reported. On 6 May, India saw the highest single-day spike in cases across the globe when 4,14,188 new cases were registered.

The total caseload rose to 2,37,03,665, while the number of active cases rose to 37,10,525. The active cases comprise 15.65 percent of the total infections.

The Union health ministry said that the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 83.26 percent. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease rose to to 1,97,34,823, while the case fatality rate was 1.09 percent, the data updated at 8 am showed.

According to the ICMR, 30,94,48,585 samples have been tested till 12 May, with 18,64,594 samples being tested on Thursday.

The 4,120 new fatalities include 816 from Maharashtra, 516 from Karnataka, 326 from Uttar Pradesh, 300 from Delhi, 293 from Tamil Nadu, 193 from Punjab, 165 from Haryana, 164 from Rajasthan, 153 from Chhattisgarh, 135 from West Bengal, 109 from Uttarakhand and 102 from Gujarat.

A total of 2,58,317 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 78,007 from Maharashtra, 20,368 from Karnataka, 20,310 from Delhi, 16,471 from Tamil Nadu, 16,369 from Uttar Pradesh, 12,728 from West Bengal, 11,111 from Punjab and 11,094, from Chhattisgarh.

On Wednesday, the Union health ministry said Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Haryana, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh cumulatively account for 82.51 percent of India’s total active cases.

Meanwhile, WHO said that India “accounts for 95 percent of cases and 93 percent of deaths in the South-East Asia region, as well as 50 percent of global cases and 30 percent of global deaths,” NDTV reported.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20 lakh-mark on 7 August, 30 lakh on 23 August, 40 lakh on 5 September and 50 lakh on 16 September. It went past 60 lakh on 28 September, 70 lakh on 11 October, crossed 80 lakh on 29 October, 90 lakh on 20 November, and surpassed the one-crore mark on 19 December. India crossed the grim milestone of 2 crore cases on 4 May.

In a bid to curb the exponential second wave, states like Bihar and Maharashtra on Thursday extended the lockdown restrictions till 25 May and 1 June, respectively.

With inputs from PTI

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