Extending the ongoing COVID-19 guidelines for one more month till September 30, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said the overall pandemic situation now appears to be largely stable at the national level, except for the localised spread observed in a few states.
The Tamil film industry won't forget Vijayakanth's large-heartedness, how he took care of fellow industry persons, male or female, rich or poor, young or old...recalls N Sathiya Moorthy. How he sent money quietly for the family of a stunt artiste to meet his funeral expenses, how he always ensured that all female co-stars, including junior artistes, had secure accommodation on outdoor shoots, and how he would always the first to rush help if anyone from the fraternity was in distress.
India has a huge untapped population which doesn't have facilities for financial aid and insurance, and it is perhaps plausible to look at the option of having niche players catering to smaller sectors akin to non-banks and microfinance institutions in lending, said Rakesh Joshi, member (Finance & Investment), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai). Speaking at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit, Joshi said, "Today, most of our insurance companies operate at a national level. There is arguably a case for having differentiated operations, which cater to niche sectors the same way we have non-banking financial companies (NBFC) and microfinance institutions in lending." "The capital requirement for niche players may not be as large as those having national ambitions. "Enabling these niche players, which require lower capital, will enhance the penetration in areas which hitherto had not seen traction from large players," he said.
Union minister Jitendra Singh assured the members of the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that there is better nuclear safety in India as compared to many other countries and there are enough safeguards in the Indian nuclear plants.
'Why he wasn't released, and why he had to die in custody?'
Jaishankar, who met Guterres at the UN headquarters in New York, also discussed other issues, including India's presidency of the G20 and the Ukraine conflict, with the UN chief.
The researchers believe their findings provide a blueprint for a second-generation, universal vaccine that could prevent infection from current and future SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Omicron.
"There was a knock on the door around 2 am on Thursday. We opened the door and found policemen outside. They took away my husband," Nimee told PTI in a feeble voice, as her one-and-half-month-old son cried in her arms just as he was when his father was being arrested.
Ten people died and 28 more were injured when an overcrowded mini-bus plunged into a deep gorge in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district on Wednesday, officials said in Jammu.
In accordance with ''Level-1'' alert under the graded response action plan (GRAP), private offices will function with physical attendance of 50 per cent of the staff, barring essential categories.
The ministry further stated that it was advisable to receive a complete schedule of the anti-coronavirus vaccine irrespective of past history of infection with COVID-19 as this will help in developing a strong immune response against the disease.
Strict norms for arriving international passengers, especially from 'at-risk' countries, will come into effect from Tuesday midnight and authorities are stepping their vigil for effective surveillance amid mounting concerns over the emergence of the coronavirus variant Omicron.
The family expressed gratitude to the audience members who bravely leapt to Rushdie's defence and administered first-aid after he was stabbed multiple times at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York.
Germany's Bundesliga is set to be given the green light for a restart, probably from May 15, as part of measures to further ease the country's coronavirus regulations, two people familiar with the preparations told Reuters. The Bundesliga would be the first of the five major European domestic soccer leagues to resume play after a stoppage which has seen almost all football put on hold around the world since mid-March.
Hockey India said it has drawn up a list of competitions both for the senior men and women's teams in the run-up to next year's Tokyo Olympics. The detailed plan involves playing a number of matches against top teams in the world.
The meeting of DDMA chaired by Lt Governor Anil Baijal, will review the COVID situation in the national capital, as per notice of the meeting.
In the context of market integrity, the IRAI and RBI should go over the minutes of the LIC and SBI board meetings when the decisions to invest in Adani equity or debt were taken, notes Jaimini Bhagwati, former World Bank treasury professional.
Tamil Nadu, Telangana and West Bengal reported their first COVID-19 variant Omicron cases on Wednesday, four more persons each tested positive in Maharashtra and Kerala.
This comes as Supreme Court is hearing a petition filed by lawyer-cum-petitioner, Gaurav Kumar Bansal, seeking an ex gratia compensation for those family members, who died due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
19 per cent of all travel in India (by bus, train or air) was pilgrimage or religious travel (possibly the single largest after business and family-related travel), discovers Ambi Parameswaran.
With the Omicron variant of coronavirus slowly spreading its tentacles in the country, a number of states enhanced surveillance to trace, track and quarantine contacts of COVID-19 positive persons while Delhi began genome sequencing of samples of all infected people and has prohibited Christmas and New Year gatherings.
'The government should immediately enact an Act to make caste discrimination a criminal offence and lay down a procedure similar to that of the Anti-Ragging Act.' 'Ragging has nearly been eliminated because it is treated as a criminal offence.' 'Similar procedure should be used in case of caste discrimination.'
Indian national Sushmita Banerjee, whose memoir about her dramatic escape from the Taliban was turned into a Bollywood film, was shot dead in Afghanistan by militants, police said on Thursday.
The government can verify 5 per cent of claims in four states -- Maharashtra, Kerala, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh -- where the gap between number of claims and recorded deaths was wide, said a bench of Justices M R Shah and B V Nagarathna.
Assange, 50, is wanted in the US over the publication of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010 and 2011. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.
Addressing a press conference a day after the CBI raid against him, Sisodia expressed apprehension that the agency or the Enforcement Directorate (ED) may arrest him in the next 3-4 days, while Chief Minister Kejriwal, who has been aggressively taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party in Modi's home state, announced on Twitter that he will be touring Gujarat with Sisodia from Monday.
Any sex worker who is a victim of sexual assault should be provided with all facilities available to a survivor of sexual assault, including immediate medical assistance, in accordance with law, it said.
Significant controls and exemptions to the government under the proposed Digital Personal Data Protection bill 2022 are likely to make it harder for companies to invest in data centres and data processing activities in India, according to global technology industry body ITI. The ministry of electronics and IT has floated draft Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill 2022 and has invited comments on the same till January 2. "The Bill grants significant controls to the executive arm of GOI (Government of India) and delegates much of the detailed rulemaking authority to separate, as yet undefined processes.
Anxious relatives of several Indians stuck in Sudan following the fighting between the Army and paramilitary forces are eagerly waiting for information about their relatives and appealed to the government to evacuate them from the strife-torn African country as soon as possible.
They said after examining and analysing the adverse event reports, causal relationship and all related details shared by or to be shared by the WHO, the committee will advise and recommend further course of action to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI).
The Delhi government had earlier declared that random testing of coronavirus will be held across airports, railway and bus stations.
In view of a persistent rise in COVID-19 cases, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Tuesday ordered that there will be no public celebrations in the national capital for upcoming festivals such Holi and Navaratri. Considering the rise in COVID-19 cases, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) also announced that Holi celebrations, on March 28 and 29, will not be permitted in both private or public places.
In Chhattisgarh, 40 lakh BPL smart card holders under the state's existing MSBY will be beneficiaries of Ayushman Bharat.
A nine-year-old lioness Neela and a male lion named Pathbanathan, aged 12 years, succumbed to COVID-19 earlier this month.
The second phase of Covid-19 vaccination in India will begin from March ,1 in which people above 60 years of age and those above 45 years of age with comorbidities will be vaccinated, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Wednesday.
The Chinese capital reported 106 domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases since June 11 and a senior city official warned that the situation is "extremely severe" in Beijing where authorities have mounted massive containment measures including mass testing of about 90,000 people.
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The ongoing Puri heritage corridor construction work might have caused damage to the 800-year-old Jagannath temple there and the state government project was being carried out without valid permission from the competent authorities, the Archaeological Survey of India on Monday informed the Orissa high court.
The cruise ship Diamond Princess with 3,711 people on board arrived at the Japanese coast early last week and was quarantined after a passenger who de-boarded last month in Hong Kong was found to be the carrier of the novel virus on the ship.
