The coronavirus variant B.1.617 first identified in India last year has been classified as a "variant of global concern", with some preliminary studies showing that it spreads more easily, a senior WHO official had said on Monday.
'In the absence of a vaccine, as long as there are pockets of active cases in India, it would be good to have a limited lockdown.'
There is a high demand for IT professionals who can envision, design and develop applications for the future.
Although the designed mission life of MOM was six months, the satellite has continued to beam back science data from Mars for the past four years.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Professor of Economics at Harvard University Raj Chetty have been named by the Carnegie Corporation of New York as '2020 Great Immigrants' honourees, the Corporation said in a statement on Wednesday.
'Mamata's numbers will reduce this time compared to 2016.'
Those who have recovered from COVID-19 respond faster to the Covishield vaccine and reach high antibody levels, says a study, leading to hopes that they may not need a second dose and therefore help widen India's corona immunisation cover.
The centre pays only an insulting Rs 200 per pensioner each month at a tight-fisted 0.04 per cent of GDP, among the lowest in the world. Instead, as illustrated by Jean Drze, one option is for NYAY to provide individual rather than household entitlements to all pensioners of at least Rs 1200 per month.
Only half India's population has received the first shot of Covishield and Covaxin and the government's immediate task is to first vaccinate its adult population before placing its focus on children.
The complaint seeking registration of a first information report on cheating, criminal conspiracy and other charges was filed in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Mukesh Kumar here on Tuesday by Tamanna Hashmi, who identifies himself as a social worker and is often in news for his numerous court complaints against politicians over various issues.
Rediff readers tell us about their first jobs and salaries.
Attrition is driving the hiring effort on campuses.
Sivan asserted that though Chandrayaan-2 did not go as per script, it will have no bearing with on the 'Gaganyaan' mission.
The lab is run at the Lahore University of Management Sciences and becomes the fifth biomechanics lab to be approved by ICC.
Rosetta's Philea space probe recently re-established radio contact with Earth from its distant comet 67P and sent a stream of science data just before low battery power dropped it into standby mode.
Why did we go into nationwide lockdown when we were adding 100 cases a day and why are we not going into lockdown but allowing cricket stadiums, political rallies and Kumbh Melas when we are adding 40,000 cases a day? asks Aakar Patel.
The need of the hour, as the Supreme Court readies to rule on the constitutionality of Aadhaar, is for the UIDAI to fix the bugs, says Geetanjali Krishna, in the second and final part of her series.
The arrival of summer in India may have raised hopes that hot and humid weather could slow the COVID-19 progression but virologist Naga Suresh Veerapu believes that outbreak and pandemic occurrences often do not follow seasonality.
Given the security dilemma prevailing between India and China, India should curb the operation of Chinese telecom companies in India, asserts Dr Rup Narayan Das.
The HR challenge seems to be one of the most important issues that RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das will have to tackle.
Dr V K Paul, Member (Health) Niti Aayog, who also chairs the national expert group on COVID-19 vaccine administration, said the government attaches 'great importance to this offer of partnership from a very special friend to this nation'.
As India gets ready to roll out one of the largest vaccine programmes, billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday said his group is working with authorities to provide technology tools and backbone for mass inoculation against COVID-19. Ambani's telecom venture Jio was rolled out four years back, offering free voice calling and dirt-cheap data. Today, Jio is India's largest telecom operator with over 400 million users, each connected to the internet. At a Facebook event, Ambani said the government's digital push kept the country running even during the pandemic and is now helping in the rollout of one of the largest vaccination programmes.
The Union health minister said of the total active COVID-19 cases in the country, 1.5 per cent are on oxygen support and 2.34 per cent are in ICUs.
The Jat vote is crucial in winning at least 40 assembly seats in Western UP, which has been in the grip of a widespread farmer movement, reports Nitin Kumar.
Special infection proof fabric for usage in hospitals, low-cost corona virus testing kits, isolation pods for coronavirus infected patients, bubble helmets which can be an alternative for traditional oxygen masks and pendant to raise alarm on breach of social distancing, are also among the innovative ideas that have been given shape since the coronavirus outbreak in the country.
The two cities finally got their act together by ramping up the testing capacity and implementing stricter quarantine norms.
The BJP president also accused Congress leaders, including a chief minister, of trying to actively create vaccine hesitancy during the once-in-a-century pandemic.
'The cost of the lockdown so far is the loss of about 11 million jobs.' 'It is important that a fresh lockdown does not make this worse,' asserts Mahesh Vyas.
Researchers from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China assessed data on 938 COVID-19 patients from the country's Wuhan Union Hospital. They obtained information about residual symptoms in these patients, and the results of follow up tests for viral genetic material in their body after they were discharged.
It said clinical trials of the drug 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) showed that it helps in faster recovery of hospitalised patients and reduces supplemental oxygen dependence.
One 'severe' and 51 'minor' cases of AEFI (adverse events following immunisation) were reported among healthcare workers who were administered the coronavirus vaccine in Delhi on the first day of the COVID-19 vaccination drive on Saturday, official figures showed.
Battling an acute shortage of oxygen, some hospitals in Delhi on Sunday sent out desperate SOS calls to authorities to replenish their dwindling stocks, with one healthcare facility even requesting the government to shift out its patients.
The WHO said that studies have highlighted that the spread of the second wave has been much faster than the first in India.
As India launches the world's most ambitious and biggest vaccination drive against COVID-19, the country will encounter the formidable challenge of rapidly scaling up distribution of the vaccines to secure immunity for its entire population, two prominent Indian scientists at World Health Organisation have said.
"The overall Delhi's Air Quality Index is in the very poor category with few Delhi locations entering at higher zone but that will be short lived. This is mainly because the extremely calm local surface winds which were prevailing yesterday are likely to increase slightly and may further pick-up by Oct 26," SAFAR said.
Behind each Covid vaccine are hundreds of parents, who had the courage and conviction to come forth with their children for the trial of a vaccine which was, until then, untried in that age group, reports Sindhu Bhattacharya.
Winning against Covid means thinking ahead, at least six months, putting in place the likely scenarios of what might happen, and then planning. Planning is the role of the government. Having planned, it should communicate what and why. Then, get out of the way, recommends Naushad Forbes.
Fund managers said investors remained positive on the pharma manufacturing activity in India, which further strengthened during the Covid-19 period, on account of restrictions imposed on pharma imports from China.
Shahid Jameel, recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, also said that the country had already reached community transmission a long time ago.
Data spanning the years 1951 to 2014 show that temperature and pressure conditions at specific locations in the Arctic region during the pre-monsoon period correlate with the Indian summer monsoon rainfall, points out Charu Bahri.
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