The fact that the responses from the community to Mohan Bhagwat's remarks have ranged from guarded optimism to outright disbelief tells its own story, points out Kanika Dutta.
A Sikh professor at Columbia University was allegedly attacked by a group of men, who called him "Osama" and "terrorist", in an assault which police are investigating as a hate crime.
The government also said the coronavirus tracking app Aarogya Setu is secure as it has been designed keeping in mind the privacy of people and is playing a crucial role in India's fight against COVID-19.
After two years of muted festivities due to COVID-19, crowds thronged churches across the country this Christmas on Sunday for special prayers as people celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ.
The city has prepared a 10-day plan to test all its residents after six new coronavirus cases were reported in a residential community.
The prestigious event was originally scheduled to be held from May 16-24 but was postponed to August 15-23 before finally rescheduling it in October due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Centre told the Bombay high court on Tuesday that a door-to-door COVID-19 vaccination programme for senior citizens, specially-abled, bed-ridden and wheelchair-bound people is currently not possible, but it has decided to start 'near-to-door' inoculation centres.
A fracture of interstate relations could be India's biggest risk coming out of the pandemic. This topped a list of critical risks for India over the next two years, according to Geneva-based World Economic Forum's Executive Opinion Survey (EOS), whose results were released on Tuesday. Other top risks include a debt crisis in large economies, widespread youth disillusionment, failure of technology governance and digital inequality.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, however, demanded Dahi Handi festival be allowed to be organised under certain conditions traditionally.
The interim findings of the trial in which the four drugs were tested in 405 hospitals across 30 countries, covering 11,266 adults, were released on 'medRxiv', a preprint server, on Thursday. The findings are under review for publication in a medical journal.
Experts emphasise on the need to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus using strategic and pragmatic approaches in villages as well as Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and towns, which are reporting increased COVID-19 infections and deaths during the ongoing second wave of COVID-19 pandemic.
The SARS-CoV-2 sero-positivity rate among children is high and comparable to the adult population and hence, it is unlikely that any future third wave of the prevailing COVID-19 variant would disproportionately affect children aged two years and above, according to the interim findings of an ongoing study conducted in the country.
Top officials, including cabinet secretary, principal secretary to the prime minister, health secretary and NITI Aayog member Vinod Paul, attended the meeting.
The trial is to be conducted on 525 healthy volunteers. In the trial, the vaccine will be given by intramuscular route in two doses at day 0 and day 28.
Amid slogan shouting by MPs from the Trinamool Congress, the Congress and other opposition parties from the Well of the House, Modi began replying to the debate on the motion thanking the President for her address to the joint sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at the start of the Budget Session, and accused the Congress of adopting only 'tokenism' to solving problems the country faced.
'That is the one headline the world is reading about India this week, and it is a potentially damaging story...' 'I don't think a panic mentality has set in, but this story is one that investors and market watchers are absolutely seized with.'
COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria also said in a statement that the one case of the virus acquired overseas reported on Sunday was not connected to the tennis Grand Slam.
'They are not ready to take the vaccine.' 'They fear that if they do, they will die.'
'The key purpose of vaccination is to prevent hospitalisation, severe disease, and death.' 'All vaccines work equally, although mild disease cannot be prevented.'
Addressing a health card distribution ceremony in Peshawar, Chief Minister Khan said the government has issued orders to rebuild the temple. The attack on the temple in Terri village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's (KP) Karak district on Wednesday drew strong condemnation from human rights activists and the minority Hindu community leaders.
Amid fresh COVID-19 concerns, Karnataka government on Sunday decided to impose 'night curfew' for 10 days from December 28, between 10 PM and 5 am.
In a statement, the PMO said three vaccines are in advanced stages of development in India, out of which two are in Phase II and one is in Phase-III. It further said Indian Scientists and research teams are collaborating and strengthening the research capacities in neighbouring countries such as Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Mauritius, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
Researchers at Public Health Scotland and the University of Edinburgh, UK, found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine offered better protection against the Delta variant compared to the Oxford-AstraZeneca preventive, known as Covishield in India.
'Ultimately, we have to understand that we don't have the supply at the population scale. 'Therefore, it has to be prioritised.' 'That's what the government has done.'
The Premier League has said its clubs will consult with their players over a proposed 30% reduction in wages and the suspended season would only resume when it was "safe and appropriate". While there has been speculation about a reduced season or even abandoning this campaign, the league said it remained their aim to complete all remaining domestic league and cup matches.
The BJP and the AIADMK are unable to sort out ideological differences, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
At a time when the country's medical infrastructure has become incapable of handling the pressure of Covid's deadly second wave, a parallel wave of conmen, black marketers and counterfeiters can be witnessed across the country. Geetanjali Krishna reports.
'...Where there is clearly no evidence of community transmission, letting life return to normal in those districts while continuing to rigorously control the spread of the infection.'
Kerala health minister Veena George, who reviewed the state's COVID-19 situation two days ago, today blamed the violation of home quarantine directives for the worsening situation and cautioned against the increased indoor transmission of coronavirus at homes.
Ramesh Menon, the veteran journalist suggests Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi what he should do if he wants to win 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
According to the organisers, based on the feedback from the NOCs and NPCs, it is expected that a significant proportion of Games participants will have been vaccinated before arriving in Japan. The new MoU adds to these efforts.
A new sub-lineage BA.2.75 of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in countries like India and the World Health Organisation is following this, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Addressing the daily press briefing on the actions taken, preparedness and updates on COVID-19, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health Lav Agarwal said 92 new cases and four deaths due to coronavirus have been reported in India since Sunday, taking total cases to 1,071 and the number of deaths to 29.
The government has asked the eleven municipal areas to step up monitoring in old cities, urban slums and other high density pockets like camps and clusters for migrant workers for management of COVID-19 cases.
Amid rising coronavirus cases in India, the government has asked people not to panic, saying no community transmission of the virus has been observed and there has only been a few cases of local transmission so far and that it is "not a health emergency" in India at present.
"Coming festivals (Chhat, Puja, Dussehra, Deepavali, Id, Xmas, New year) pose a huge challenge in the pandemic control. It has been seen that Onam in Kerala and Ganesh Chaturthi in Maharashtra escalated the pandemic seriously. This must not be allowed to happen in Delhi," the report stated.
The PM will make a six-day visit to the United States from September 21 to 27 to attend various events including the annual United Nations General Assembly session in New York and a diaspora event in Houston in Texas in which US President Donald Trump is also participating.
The same team of scientists had last year dismissed the lab leak idea as a conspiracy theory in a report also published in The Lancet.
A group of public health experts, including doctors from All India Institute of Medical Sciences and members from the national taskforce on COVID-19, have said that mass, indiscriminate and incomplete vaccination can trigger emergence of mutant strains and recommended that there is no need to inoculate those who had documented coronavirus infection.
Sunisa Lee came to Tokyo thinking the best she might do was win an all-around Olympic silver but the youngest member of the US gymnastics team grabbed the gold on Thursday after Simone Biles dropped out of the event over mental health concerns.
