Rs 7,774 crore, has been provisioned for COVID-19 Emergency Response and the rest for medium-term support, ranging from one to four years to be provided under mission-mode approach.
'Wherever in the world there is political instability, those countries are beset with severe crises today. But India is in a much better position than the rest of the world due to the decisions taken by my government in the national interest,' President Droupadi Murmu said in her address to both Houses of Parliament.
'If he were to drop even one nuclear weapon on Europe, it would start a nuclear war that would destroy everybody.'
The prime minister also visited the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi after the milestone was achieved and interacted with hospital officials.
"I used to say 'jab tak davai nahi dhilai nahi' but now our mantra for 2021 should be: Davai bhi, kadaai bhi (yes to medicine and yes to caution)," Modi said.
It is incorrect to say that India was complacent and did not do adequate amount of work for containment of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as no country was prepared for it, National Health Authority (NHA) CEO R S Sharma said on Thursday.
'38,162 volunteer doctors, including retired government, Armed Forces Medical Services, public sector undertaking or private doctors have signed up with the government to battle COVID-19 pandemic'
Women and children have been given short shrift with these crucial sectors facing substantive budgetary cuts, discovers Rashme Sehgal.
Part of periodic Article IV consultations on state of the economy; team to have discussions with government as well as banks, private investors and civil society
The four test pilots of the Indian Air Force, chosen for India's manned mission to space, have been undergoing training at the Yu.A. Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Centre near Moscow since February.
An increase in government spending on the healthcare sector - from the current 1 per cent to 2.5-3 per cent of GDP - as envisaged in the National Health Policy 2017 could reduce out-of-pocket expenditures, as per the Economic Survey 2020-21. The rise in public spending can lead to a reduction in expenditures from 65 per cent to 30 per cent of overall healthcare spend, it noted. The Economic Survey said that for the country to effectively respond to future pandemics, the country's health infrastructure needs to be agile. Given its potential to provide healthcare access in remote areas, telemedicine needs to be harnessed to the fullest by especially investing in internet connectivity and health infrastructure, it added.
On Monday night, when President Ram Nath Kovind presented the Padma awards at a civil investiture ceremony in the Darbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan, the loudest applause was reserved for Swami Sivananda, the 125-year-old yoga guru who walked barefoot to receive the Padma Shri -- after prostrating before Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi and President Kovind.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said the Centre along with states is making efforts to control lumpy skin disease in cattle.
He made a reference to the clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh's Galwan Valley in June this year. "What our jawans can do, what the country can do, the world has seen in Ladakh," he said.
Vardhan stated the government is taking full precautions in human trials of vaccines and the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 under the chairmanship of Dr V K Paul, member-health, NITI Aayog, is drawing up a detailed strategy on how to immunize the majority of the population.
Amid oxygen shortage and a faltering health system in the country, India is seeing over 300,000 cases daily.
"30,100 volunteer doctors, including retired government, Armed Forces Medical Services, public sector undertaking or private doctors have signed up to the government to battle COVID-19 pandemic," the official said.
US President Donald Trump has extended the freeze on the most sought-after H-1B visas along with other types of foreign work visas by three months to protect American workers, saying while therapeutics and COVID-19 vaccines are recently available, their effect on the labour market and community health has not yet been fully realised. The decision will impact a large number of Indian IT professionals and several American and Indian companies who were issued H-1B visas by the US government for the fiscal year 2021 beginning October 1. The freeze on various categories of work visas was ordered by Trump through two proclamations on April 22 and June 22 last year.
The Centre directed Uttar Pradesh and Bihar on Sunday to prevent dumping of dead bodies in the Ganga and its tributaries, and focus on their safe disposal and a dignified cremation after corpses were seen floating in these rivers following a spurt in the number of coronavirus cases.
The World Health Organization on Thursday had said that a sharp rise in reported COVID-19, (official name for coronavirus) cases in China was due to a change in counting methods and it did not represent a big shift in the epidemic.
For the philanthropy, we wanted also to have big impact, a kind of a new dimension.
'I do not want every Tom, Dick and Harry to collect money. Is there any state control over this collection of funds via crowdfunding?'
Thousands of people joined the Prime Minister in the mass Yoga demonstration in Mysuru.
Thackeray said there will be some restrictions in the state after June 30 but more relaxations will be offered gradually.
The PMO said mass yoga demonstrations will be organised at 75 iconic locations across the country under the leadership of 75 Union ministers, with Modi attending the exercise at Mysore.
Speaking at a press conference, Peter Ben Embarek, the head of the WHO mission in Wuhan, stated four hypotheses on how the virus spread but reiterated that "laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus into the human population".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the 6th India Mobile Congress at Pragati Maidan in Delhi and launched 5G services. The 5G telecom services seek to provide seamless coverage, high data rate, low latency and highly reliable communications system. The three major telecom operators of the country demonstrated one use case each in front of the prime minister to show the potential of 5G technology in India.
V K Paul, Member (Health), Niti Aayog said, "Spread of transmission through water is not a concern. Not to worry."
As India gears up to vaccinate people above 60 years of age and those over 45 years with comorbidities against COVID-19 from March 1, the Union health ministry on Friday said the facility of on-site registrations will be available so that eligible beneficiaries can walk into identified vaccination centres, get themselves registered and get inoculated.
In northern Thailand, hundreds of international rescue workers have been spending their last waking hours for the past 11 days trying to get a group of 12 boys, ages 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old soccer coach who have been trapped in a cave after flooding caused by relentless monsoon rains. On July 2, rescue teams discovered all of the boys and their coach alive and in relatively good health, sheltering deep inside the cave complex. Outside, family and friends, who had gathered, welcomed the news. While the boys have been found, extracting them from the cave still remains a difficult task -- much of the return trip is underwater and even though pumps are lowering the water level, the rainfall is not letting up. Here's what's happening and what officials are planning to get them out.
Had Finance Minister Sitharaman thought a little more about the middle class, disadvantaged sections, and the poor who are struggling, it would have been an inclusive Budget that would have made history, notes Ramesh Menon.
Confirming the visit, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing on Monday that China supported scientists around the world to conduct a global study on the origins and transmission routes of the virus.
Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan held a high-level review meeting through video conference with the chief secretaries, health secretaries and National Health Mission (NHM) directors of these states, the health ministry said. 'These states are witnessing a surge in COVID-19 cases since the last three weeks as lockdown rules have been eased and inter-state migration has been allowed,' the ministry said in a statement.
The action group will be known as Parliamentarians with Innovators for India (PIIndia.org), which aims to spur innovators to solve challenges in areas such as public health, economy, and livelihood. While the 14 parliamentarians come from different states and across party lines, the group has organisations like Population Foundation of India, Centre for Policy Research, Omnicuris, apart from top experts in public health and policy.
"When the A320 plane, which did not have any passengers as it was heading to Moscow to bring back stranded Indians under Vande Bharat Mission, had reached Uzbekistan's airspace, our team on ground realised that one of the pilots had tested COVID-positive," senior Air India officials said.
The pandemic has changed the way people see the government. It has eroded trust in the administration's ability to tackle a crisis, any crisis, observes Devangshu Datta.
Only 30 flights per week will operate between India and the UK when services resume from January 8 and this arrangement will continue till January 23, Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said on Friday.
Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani said that the government is committed to support and protect every vulnerable child who lost both parents to Covid.
Faulting previous governments for not taking adequate measures to economically empower women in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said his government was constantly creating an environment in which women self-help groups can connect villages with prosperity as he released Rs 1,625 crore as capitalisation support fund to over four lakh such groups. In a virtual interaction with the women self-help groups (SHGs) under the "Aatmanirbhar Narishakti se Samvad" (dialogue with self-reliant women) initiative, Modi said in a changing India, opportunities are increasing for women to move forward. The movement of woman SHGs has intensified in the last 6-7 years with over 70 lakh of them working across the country, a figure over three times more than earlier, he said, adding over eight crore women are connected with these groups.
The Vikram Moon Lander, named after the father of India's space mission Vikram Sarabhai on his birth centenary year, is scheduled to touch the lunar surface near its south pole on September 7 about 1.55 am.
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