Science is a young person's game. An award to a young scientist could free up that person to do productive work, or help win more grants by enhancing reputation, argues Devangshu Datta.
The CSIR DG said the transmissibility of the new strain N501Y is a "bit higher" but this does not mean it is more lethal and more people are going to die due to it.
Is the worst of the Covid crisis behind India? As cases dip three weeks after Diwali, the answer is a possible yes, say several experts, attributing the downslide to a large section of the population already exposed to the virus during the second wave and a stepped up vaccination campaign.
When a person gets an infection even after being vaccinated against it, it is called a breakthrough case.
The Social Dilemma shows how social media is turning human beings into lab rats and zombies, notes Chintan Girish Modi.
Turbocharged with technology is becoming the Holy Grail of retail.
As for Bharat Biotech, the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on COVID-19 of the CDSCO asked the firm to expedite volunteer recruitment for the ongoing clinical trial and said it may conduct interim efficacy analysis for further consideration of restricted emergency use approval for its vaccine Covaxin, they stated.
The Chinese company has also collected the data base of bureaucrats in key positions, judges, scientists, academicians, journalists, actors, sportspersons, religious figures and activists, he added.
The data gaps are inhibiting sound decisions. We need to know seroprevalence, infection, and vaccination rates. This is required in 200 cities of India, every week, suggests Ajay Shah.
'Antiviral treatment will have no change. Spike protein change may affect the immunity protection.'
The B.1.640.2 variant has been reported by researchers at institute IHU Mediterranee Infection in at least 12 cases, and has been linked to travel to African country Cameroon.
Safety and Efficacy results from the final analysis will be available in June, and the final report will be submitted to a peer-reviewed publication.
Anurag Agrawal, the Director of the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, said the study on effectiveness of the available vaccines on the B.1.617 variant of SARS-CoV2 suggests that post vaccination, the infections are milder.
"We not only uncovered that these stem cell-derived heart cells are susceptible to infection by novel coronavirus, but that the virus can also quickly divide within the heart muscle cells," said study co-author Arun Sharma from the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute in the United States. "Even more significant, the infected heart cells showed changes in their ability to beat after 72 hours of infection," Sharma said.
Modi, in his address at the ISRO centre asked the scientists not to get disheartened by the hurdles in the lunar mission Chandrayaan-2 and asserted that there will be a "new dawn".
India's official COVID-19 tally on Wednesday was 4,18,480 (4.18 lakh), the third highest in the world after the US and Brazil.
Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata have already reached their peak in case numbers in the past seven days, said Manindra Agrawal, a professor at IIT Kanpur and one of the researchers associated with the Sutra Covid model.
'Better to prevent than to wait for evidence. Protection delayed can also mean protection denied'
The Serum Institute of India has stockpiled 40 mn-50 mn doses and is adding more every week. Most of these will come to India.
The World Health Organisation has said it is 'not yet clear' whether the newly-detected coronavirus variant Omicron is more transmissible or causes more severe disease compared to other variants, including the highly-transmissible and globally prevalent Delta variant.
Initial data has shown immunity triggered by the two mRNA vaccines -- Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna -- lasts for at least six months
"The Indian Medical Association has requested all its 3.5 lakh members in 1,800 local branches to voluntarily come out to get vaccinated first to show the world that these vaccines are safe and efficacious," it said.
World leaders gathered at the G7 Summit in Cornwall discussed the possibility that a laboratory leak in central China's Wuhan city may have a connection with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) chief saying all hypotheses behind the origins of the deadly disease remain in play.
Since the trial participants were not exposed to the coronavirus after vaccination, the scientists said it is not possible for the current study to determine the efficacy of the candidate vaccine.
Gita Ramjee has become the first Indian-origin South African to have died after contracting the novel coronavirus. Ramjee, a stellar vaccine scientist and an HIV prevention research leader, had returned from London a week ago but reportedly showed no symptoms of COVID-19.
Unlike some of India's largest online retailers like Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra and Jabong, which are very secretive about their data and use it to cut better deals with brands than their competitors, the Nykaa monetising its insights. If it is is able to do so without giving away any of its advantages to competitors, it could be on to a winning model.
As the Omicron strain spreads across the globe and questions on vaccine inequity dominate discussions, scientists are still scrambling to learn more about emerging variants of the deadly virus that has claimed millions of lives and crippled economies.
Omicron can evade the immune protection conferred by COVID-19 vaccines and natural infection, according to a peer-reviewed study which also suggests that the new variant of coronavirus is completely resistant to antibody therapies in use today.
'However, the importance of children in transmitting the virus remains uncertain,' the scientists cautioned in the study. 'Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause infection and disease in animals, capable of rapid mutation and recombination, leading to novel viruses that can spread from animals to humans,' they said.
The Serum Institute of India, the largest vaccine maker in the world, has been chosen by Oxford and its partner AstraZeneca to manufacture the vaccine once it is ready. Trials results for the first two phases were published earlier this month.
The United States intelligence community has failed to reach any firm conclusion on the exact origin of COVID-19 and is split on whether it leaked from a lab in China or emerged in nature, even though it does not believe the virus was developed as a biological weapon, according to results of a detailed review ordered by President Joe Biden.
India achieved a major milestone in its vaccination programme against COVID-19 as the cumulative vaccine doses administered in the country surpassed the 200-crore mark on Sunday.
The researchers from King's College London in the United Kingdom also found that most systemic side effects -- meaning side effects excluding where the injection took place -- peaked within the first 24 hours following vaccination and usually lasted 1-2 days.
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.
Long queues were seen outside walk-in vaccination centres across the UK on Monday as people queued for their booster vaccine doses, even as the government's work from home guidance came in force as part of measures to tackle the "tidal wave" of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
Solar Orbiter is on a unique trajectory that will allow its comprehensive set of instruments to provide humanity with the first-ever images of the Sun's poles, the US space agency said. This trajectory includes 22 close approaches to the Sun, bringing the spacecraft within the orbit of Mercury to study the Sun, and its influence on space, it said.
As the Omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2 takes centrestage, vaccine makers in India are of the view that scaling up the existing vaccines to make them more effective is possible.
A new research has pinpointed some genes that can trigger depression.
However, the probe agencies stressed that all angles were being covered in the probe.
The study noted that nine of 30 large states -- Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Telangana, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha, and Gujarat -- have high vulnerability to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances