Hopeful India will get Covid-19 vaccine nod by Dec end or early Jan: AIIMS Director

News Network
December 3, 2020

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New Delhi, Dec 3: Director of the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Dr Randeep Guleria has said that he is hopeful of that by the end of this month or early next month, India will get emergency use authorisation for a coronavirus vaccine.

In an interview with ANI, Dr Guleria, who is also a member of the national task force on Covid-19 management stated: "In India, we now have a vaccine which is in the final phase of the trial. Both the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech vaccines are in their phase three trials. So we are very hopeful that by the end of this month or early next month, we should get the emergency use authorisation from the Indian regulatory authorities to start giving the vaccine to the public."

The Covid vaccine developed by American pharma giant Pfizer, was cleared by the United Kingdom on Wednesday and will be rolled out to the public early next week.

While stressing on Indian vaccines and their authorisation Dr Guleria stated that "this is great news that one vaccine has finally being floored and within the span of one year. This is a big boost to all the vaccine manufacturers. Now there are good chances of the vaccine being available."

The AIIMS director said that there is good data available that the vaccines are safe. "70,000-80,000 volunteers were tested with the Covid-19 vaccine and apart from one case in Chennai, no significant adverse effects were seen on the volunteers. The data showed that in the short term, the vaccine is safe," he said.

On the distribution of vaccine, Dr Guleria said "work is going on at war-footing both at the centre and the state level for vaccine distribution plan in terms of maintaining the cold chain, having appropriate storehouses available, developing strategy, training vaccinators and availability of syringes."

Dr Guleria said that in the beginning as vaccines won't be available in sufficient doses to give everyone, the Centre is working on adopting strategies to prioritise the list.

"We need a priority list to see that we vaccinate those who have high chances of dying due to Covid-19. Elderly, people with comorbidities and front line workers should be vaccinated first."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has over the past week visited vaccine manufacturing facitilites in three cities and held multiple meetings with all stakeholders to review efforts to create and distribute a coronavirus vaccine.

Covid-19 cases reached to 95,34,965, including 4,22,943 active cases and 89,73,373 recoveries. As many as 526 new fatalities were reported escalating the death toll to 1,38,648 on Thursday.

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News Network
March 28,2024

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Russia says it is "extremely hard to believe" that Daesh could have staged the recent hugely deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall that the country's intelligence and security officials have blamed on Ukraine and its Western backers.

Four gunmen burst into the Russian capital's Crocus City Hall on Friday and began shooting at the people, who were attending an event. The Takfiri terrorist group has allegedly claimed responsibility for the massacre that killed at least 143.

Speaking on Wednesday, however, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova cast that claim into serious doubt.

"In order to ward off suspicions from the collective West, they urgently needed to come up with something, so they resorted to ISIS (Daesh), pulled an ace out of their sleeve, and literally a few hours after the terrorist attack, the Anglo-Saxon media began disseminating precisely these versions," she said.

The chief of the Russian internal intelligence (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov has suggested that not only Ukraine, but also the United States and Britain might have been behind the shooting.

The Russian Federal Security Service has also said the gunmen planned to travel to Ukraine, where they were to be welcomed as "heroes." The FSB said Western intelligence services aided the attackers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also suggested that Ukraine stood to derive benefit from the attack and that Kiev might have played a role.

He has said that someone on the Ukrainian side had prepared a "window" for the gunmen to escape across the border before they were captured in western Russia on Friday night.

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News Network
March 15,2024

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New Delhi, Mar 13: The Supreme Court on Friday took exception to the State Bank of India (SBI) for not disclosing complete details of Electoral Bonds, including unique alfa numeric numbers, furnished to the Election Commission for uploading on the website.

A five-judge Constitution bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud issued notice to the SBI seeking its response on Monday after the court was informed that the issuing bank for the Electoral Bonds has not disclosed unique alfa numeric number of each bond.

"They have not disclosed the bond numbers. It has to be disclosed by the State Bank of India. All details have to be provided by the SBI," the bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, noted.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal said as per the Constitution bench judgment of February 15, 2024, all details were to be disclosed.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted since the SBI was a party to the judgment, notice may be issued to it.

The court said the counsel for SBI should have been here.

"If you see the judgment, we have specified that bond numbers have to be provided," the bench said.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan appeared for the main petitioner Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

On an application by the EC, the bench said the details of Electoral Bonds furnished by the poll panel before the top court should be scanned and returned to it for the purpose of uploading on the website.

The Election Commission through advocate Amit Sharma filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to release data on electoral bonds furnished to the top court in terms of previous orders of April 12, 2019 and November 2, 2023.

As per March 11, 2024 order, the Election Commission on Thursday uploaded the data on electoral bonds furnished to it by the SBI.

However, in an application, the poll panel said it had furnished to the Supreme Court a number of sealed envelopes, containing details on EBs encashed by the political parties, during the course of hearing in the matter.

It sought a direction for the return of those sealed envelopes to comply with the directions to upload it on the website as per order of March 11.

On Monday, the Supreme Court had told the SBI to furnish details of purchasers of Electoral Bonds and names of political parties redeemed those instruments by March 12 to the Election Commission, rejecting its plea for extension of time until June 30 for the purpose.

It had then directed the Election Commission to publish the information provided by the SBI on its website on March 15.

In its February 15, 2024 judgment, the SC had declared the Electoral Bonds scheme, introduced in 2018 for donation to political parties, as "unconstitutional" for being violative of the right to information.

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News Network
March 21,2024

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New Delhi, Mar 21: Election Commission (EC) on Thursday directed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of Narendra Modi-led government to put an end to bulk WhatsApp messages labelled 'Viksit Bharat Sampark.' It has also sought a compliance report immediately from the ministry.

EC had received several complaints that such messages are still being delivered on citizens’ phones despite the announcement of Lok Sabha elections and the model code of conduct (MCC) entering into force.

In response, the govt informed the commission that although the letters were sent out before MCC came into force, some of them could have possibly been delivered to recipients with a delay because of systemic and network limitations.

In the past few days, several WhatsApp users have received messages from 'Viksit Bharat Sampark' seeking feedback and suggestions from the public. 

The message comes with a PDF that has a letter from Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioning government schemes like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Ayushman Bharat, Matru Vandana Yojana, etc, and seeking suggestions from the citizens over government initiatives and schemes.

The letter which addresses users as 'my dear family members' had sparked political controversy. Congress has called the PDF file attached with the message a ‘political propaganda’.

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