Over the last four days, the Indian arm of US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Pune-based Serum Institute of India and Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical firm Bharat Biotech have applied to the Drugs Controller General of India seeking emergency use authorisation for their COVID-19 vaccines.
After Delhi, four more states -- Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand - on Thursday banned the sale of Maggi noodles, as the popular instant snack came under mounting scrutiny over food safety concerns.
These self-appointed well-wishers of AMU are basically for the control or police model of university governance. They have no faith whatsoever in the democratic functioning of the universities, observes Faizan Mustafa, former dean, Faculty of Law, and Registrar, Aligarh Muslim University.
As cases of 'black fungus' among COVID-19 patients in the country rise to cross 7,000, the Centre on Thursday urged all states and union territories to declare it as a notifiable disease under the Epidemic Diseases Act to ensure mandatory surveillance to tackle the 'new challenge'.
'We must not compromise with the standard, the quality. We don't need to be the first to launch a drug but what we need is a Made in India vaccine that the entire world can rely on'
'Testing is a very good strategy if only symptomatic people are transmitting the disease.' 'Here asymptomatic people, with minimum, trivial symptoms, are transmitting too.' 'Testing, treating, tracing contacts and quarantining them -- yes, it will work up to a certain extent.' 'But more important is physical distancing, hand hygiene, cough etiquette and cocooning, protecting with reverse quarantining the most vulnerable people, senior citizens, people with other major medical problems.' 'To me, that makes much more sense.'
'Any person who wants to enter this service should have a single object of serving the public irrespective of hindrances.'
Addressing a press briefing, health ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said currently there are no approved therapies for COVID-19 and there is not enough evidence to claim that plasma therapy can be used for treatment of the disease.
The regulator is now probing 24 hospitals, including Max Hospital in New Delhi and Lilavati in Mumbai, for allegedly overcharging patients for stents
'In our country, there is a lot of checks and balances, the figures cannot go wrong.' 'Because they are being checked by not only the governments, but by doctors themselves.'
The budgetary allocation for the sector is Rs 60,908.22 crore, with Rs 6,400 crore earmarked for the centre's flagship health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (AB-PMJAY).
The Union health ministry said West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh reported a casualty each on Monday, taking the total number of deaths to nine in the country due to COVID-19.
Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha on Tuesday recorded their first cases of the Omicron variant of COVID as the count of the new strain in 14 states and union territories crossed 200 even as the Centre said there is a need to 'activate' war rooms, take 'pro-active' action and consider night curfews.
The vaccine candidate, ZyCoV-D, showed a "strong immune response" in animal studies, and the antibodies produced were able to completely neutralise the wild type virus, Zydus said. The 12 institutes have been asked by the ICMR to fast track clinical trials of the vaccine as it is being considered as one of the top priority projects which are being monitored at the topmost level of the government.
'The prioritisation of groups for COVID-19 vaccine shall be based on two key considerations -- occupational hazard and risk of exposure to infection, and the risk of developing severe disease and increased mortality'
'I won't be surprised if a third alternative to Badal and the Congress is swept to power in Punjab in 2022.'
Thailand expressed interest in the Indian defence industry and its experience and expertise in the field of defence R&D and production. Modi welcomed Thai investments in India in the potential areas under the 'Make in India' initiative, especially in the manufacturing sector, infrastructure development, tourism and hospitality facilities.
Almost 88 per cent youth have tried some of the other addiction between 16 and 18 years of age, a new survey has revealed.
An intense thriller that sheds light on the deadly war between powerful drug cartels and the police.
While virologists say theoretically the vaccine that works on Delta should work on the Delta Plus variant as well, more research is needed.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra which completes two years in power on November 27 has survived against all odds amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The travel advisory is perhaps a first of its kind issued by any state government
The NPPA letter was issued to GSK on Wednesday.
'With just 2.4 per cent of global landmass, India houses six to eight per cent of planetary biodiversity and hence is a prime target of wildlife criminals.'
Non-BJP chief ministers are retaliating. If the Centre can use its agencies to threaten, intimidate and jail its rivals, so can they. The fightback will get more intense, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will meet his six-member cabinet at 1pm on Monday as the new Aam Aadmi Party gets down to work.
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.
'We know that there are new variants which are more transmissible. We know that human behaviour determines the spread of this virus. Therefore, it is not very relevant if we declare whether the second wave is over or not'
'The genetic thing is not in your control. The virulence is not known.' 'The only thing is if you can avoid it.' 'Once you get COVID-19, none of it is in your control.'
In 2013, Daiichi had launched the arbitration proceedings in Singapore.
'People had said it will explode and everyone will die. Nothing of that sort has happened.' 'Our government has done a splendid job so far.'
'The majority of transmission will be via people who are within two metres of one another.' 'The closer you are, the more likely that you'll be infected.'
In a surprise announcement in April, Sun and Ranbaxy -- at that time owned by Japan's Daiichi -- declared an all-stock deal to create India's largest and world's fifth-largest drugmaker in an over $4 billion deal.
'Premature lifting of the lockdown will spread the disease from asymptomatics, and those undetected, to the whole community, ushering in prolonged misery, preventable and avoidable deaths, famine and social unrest,' warns Dr Debashish Danda.
"We have received complaint from a state yesterday and so far discussed with three states. Too much variations have been reported in results of rapid test kits and RT-PCR kits. We advise states not to use them for the next two days," ICMR's Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar said.
'She used to call me every day to check whether I was all right. You know how mothers are!'
We present our alphabet of 2020, pulling in everything you'll remember about this year we'd rather forget.
The 2015 World Bank group's Doing Business index ranked India at 142, down from 140, which it was the year before.
Corporates understand that the PMO drives all key decisions in this government.
The silent epidemic is playing havoc with the lives of millions of Indians. But those suffering from this chronic disease remain in the dark about their infection.
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