'The government wants farmers to diversify from rice and wheat, and create another green revolution. Cannabis can play a big part in that'
If the government had paid enough to begin with, or if it had made serious advance purchase commitments that allowed the vaccine producers to mobilise necessary investment, then it is possible to imagine more free or subsidised vaccines such as are available in developed economies, asserts Mihir S Sharma.
Addressing the students of the Royal University of Bhutan in Thimphu, Modi asked them to work hard and take the Himalayan nation to great heights.
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.
Women are great team players and collaborators, 'but they don't put themselves forward,' Dr Gagandeep Kang, the first Indian woman scientist to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, tells Veenu Sandhu.
At some stage this fall in the quality of life will begin to hurt anybody's popularity, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'With the largest number of malnourished people on the planet, India is poised to be a nation that significantly under-performs as an economy.'
Chian it was open to international efforts to identify the source of the deadly virus.
'We have to stop thinking about GDP and look at the impact on output and unemployment.' 'And that is not going to be insignificant.'
These 51 cases were detected from over 45,000 samples sequenced so far in the country.
'You cannot fight a disease as complex as COVID-19 without a carefully calibrated, localised response.'
'We cannot be naughty and expect the government to do good!' 'We have to behave ourselves and then we can expect the government to support us.' 'If we are able to protect ourselves well, then we should not be having deaths.' 'Unfortunately, people have gotten into this super scary event participation (mode) -- birthday parties, large gatherings.' 'Among the people who have attended those, 80 to 90 per cent of them have come down with COVID-19.'
'We still have 30,000-40,000 cases.' 'It is plateauing, but the number should definitely come down more so that we can convert the pandemic into an endemic.'
Satellite analysis can assess vegetation cover down to field level.
Admittedly, EVMs too have a UID number and any convergence of data can make the secret ballot system a party of history, warns Dr Gopal Krishna in the 5th part of his series against Aadhaar.
You need, first of all, to figure out how we messed it all up so badly. You need to fix accountability. None of that is happening, says Vir Sanghvi.
Gas affected areas in Bhopal are still bereft of basic amenities.
The lockdown in India has been a timely, graded, proactive and pre-emptive public health measure to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and has been part and parcel of the government's overall strategy, Dr V K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, and Chairman, Empowered Group 1, said at a media briefing on the COVID-19 situation.
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.
While the number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 7,409, as many as 764 people have been cured and discharged, and one had migrated, it said. Of the total 273 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 127 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 36, Gujarat at 22 and Delhi at 19.
In a breakthrough, an Indian-American scientist at the prestigious MIT has developed a simple, cheap, paper test that could improve cancer diagnosis rates and help people get treated earlier.
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.
A PTI tally of figures announced by states and UTs, as of 9.30 pm, showed the total number of confirmed cases having risen to close to 2.1 lakh and the death toll to approximately 6,000, showing an increase of nearly 9,000 cases since Tuesday evening and at least 273 more fatalities in this time period.
Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen on Tuesday expressed scepticism about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's idea of secularism, asserting he would like to see "more action" in reaching out to the minorities.
The world had lost an opportunity to know long-term toxic effects of Methyl Isocyanate which had leaked from the Union Carbide factory on the night of December 2, 1984, because government research agencies have lost track of a bulk of survivors, says Dinesh C Sharma.
Rediff.com Senior Contributor P Rajendran reports from New York on how the Indian-American researcher's pioneering work may wipe out the visible effect of Alzheimer's disease.
In a letter to the prime minister, Tharoor said the country was at a "critical stage" in its campaign against the virus and expert-level groups such as the Indian Council of Medical Research have pointed out that efforts must be targeted at preventing the third phase of transmission of this virus.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday batted for nuclear power as a "dependable and clean option", even as he underlined the need to ensure that all ingredients by which nuclear fuel is made remain safe and do not fall in the hands of terrorists and anti-social elements.
'This year, we know the virus. Last year we didn't know anything about it.' 'The best part is that for the Indian population there has been some amount of cross protection.'
'Having dedicated my life towards improving breast healthcare in my motherland. I shall continue to work with rock-solid determination following this "chosen" path.'
Rather than worry about what picture of India is being painted in the foreign media, the focus must be on marshalling all our energies to provide relief and solace to our deeply wounded and dispirited citizens, says former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
'We are going ahead with the trials assuming what we have is the vaccine.' 'There is also a chance that what you have is not the vaccine. Then, you have to go back to the drawing board again.' 'So far, there has been no success in developing a good vaccine against coronaviruses.' 'That's why there are hundreds of trials going on at different stages in different parts of the world.'
The best of India's brains are instead busy solving the world's problems (I deliberately exaggerate a bit to drive home the point), as our policies incentivise them to do so.
The vaccination rate needs to go up by three to four times, assert Ajay Shah and Amrita Agarwal.
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 highest number of confirmed cases are from Maharashtra (748), followed by Tamil Nadu at 571 and Delhi with 523 cases. Cases in Telangana have gone up to 321, in Kerala to 314, in Uttar Pradesh to 305, while the number of cases has gone up to 274 in Rajasthan.
The BJP's manifesto speaks about the Prime Minister's vision of making 'Atmanirbhar Bihar'.
'Unless we get the health and economic situations right at the same time, we will not recover.'
Farming and agriculture are crying out for a business model innovation, says R Gopalakrishnan.
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