The signatories to a letter sent to NCERT Director Dinesh Saklani include Kanti Prasad Bajpai, a former Jawaharlal Nehru University professor who currently serves as the vice dean at the National University, Singapore, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a former vice-chancellor of the Ashoka University, Rajeev Bhargava, a former director of CSDS, Niraja Gopal Jayal, a former JNU professor, Nivedita Menon, a JNU professor, Vipul Mudgal, the head of civil society watchdog Common Cause, K C Suri, a former professor at the University of Hyderabad who is now associated with the Gitam University, and Peter Ronald deSouza, a former director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies.
The durability of immunity post COVID-19 vaccination persists for nine months or more and a precautionary dose of vaccine which will be administered to healthcare and frontline workers and citizens above 60 years with comorbidities is to mitigate the severity of infection, hospitalisation and death, the government said on Thursday.
The World Health Organisation has issued warning against XE, a new variant of Omicron first detected in the UK.
A provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act has been issued for attaching bank deposits, plots, flats and residential houses, it said in a statement.
Amid better semiconductor chip supplies, the Indian automotive industry posted an 8 percent growth in production of vehicles across categories for the month of May, with three-wheelers (20 per cent) and passenger vehicles (16 per cent) leading the pack. Exports, however, dipped 21 per cent at an industry level. The industry also recorded its highest-ever May wholesales of domestic passenger vehicles (334,802 units), riding on high demand for sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and better supplies of semiconductor chips.
Vaccines Covishield and Covaxin work against SARS-CoV-2 variants Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta, while effectiveness tests against the Delta Plus variant is ongoing, the government said.
The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India is neither shifting investments nor jobs from Haryana to Gujarat by shifting production of its compact sedan Dzire, company chairman RC Bhargava said on Tuesday. The company is maximising the efficiency of production at its two plants at Haryana and the parent Suzuki's Gujarat plant, keeping in mind the demand of its multiple models.
High cost of acquisition due to a variety of reasons, including higher GST than all other major countries, is slowing down car demand in the country and unless the Centre and states take steps to reduce it, the industry is unlikely to experience reasonable growth, according to Maruti Suzuki India Chairman R C Bhargava. Addressing shareholders in the company's Annual Report for 2020-21, he said after the devastating second wave of the coronavirus pandemic hitting the first quarter of FY22, the performance in the next three quarters will largely depend on how effectively people get vaccinated and observe safety protocols.
The Rhesus macaque monkeys, used worldwide in medical research, are believed to be the best non-human primates for such studies.
'We are going to have hybrid cars, which, as far as I know, none of our competition is working on, and this includes ethanol.'
Cricket has taken many steps forward towards excellence and fairness. Electoral politics has a lot of catching up to do, points out Rajeev Bhargava in his fascinating new book Between Hope and Despair.
Bhargava, who is also a cardiologist, had tested positive for coronavirus infection around 7-8 days ago and was under home isolation
In a rare face off, captains of the auto industry have hit out at the government for not walking the talk. At an industry event in the capital on Wednesday, R C Bhargava, chairman of India's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki, and Venu Srinivasan, chairman of TVS Motor, questioned the government's intent to support the auto sector. Revenue secretary Tarun Bajaj sat in the audience listening, before his turn came to counter them.
Maruti will launch its first electric vehicle (EV) in the next financial year (FY24), and will roll out six EVs in the country by FY30, the automaker's parent firm Suzuki said on Thursday.
Since India is one of the largest vaccine producers in the world, it is the country's 'moral responsibility' to fast-track vaccine development process to break the chain of coronavirus transmission, ICMR Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said referring to the two vaccine candidates developed indigenously.
States should ensure a weekly positivity rate of less than 5 per cent, vaccination coverage of at least 70 per cent among the vulnerable section, and community ownership of Covid-appropriate behaviour, reports Ruchika Chitravanshi.
There is no scientific evidence so far to support the need for a booster vaccine dose against COVID-19, ICMR Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said on Monday underlining the completion of second dose for India's adult population is the priority for the government for now.
A list of watchable Hindi legal shows and films on OTT, in order of release.
Near the temple, a group of locals shouted 'Murdabad' slogans in protest when Chouhan was on way to console the victims' families.
The incident occurred under the jurisdiction of Aron police station, some 160 km from the state capital, around 3 am when the police personnel had gone to nab the miscreants.
The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) is planning to invest around Rs 18,000 crore on a new manufacturing facility in Haryana, as per a top company official. The new plant would replace the company's Gurugram-based facility and is expected to have an installed production capacity of 7.5-10 lakh units per annum. While confirming the Rs 18,000 crore investment plan, MSI chairman RC Bhargava told PTI that the company had always planned to shift the Gurugram facility to a nearby location.
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He further said that only a marginally high proportion of COVID-19 patients are of younger age and that the average of patients in the first wave was 50 years and in this wave, it is 49 years. He also said that the older population continues to be more vulnerable to be admitted in the hospital in the current wave.
All COVID vaccines do not prevent infection and are primarily disease-modifying, said Dr Balram Bhargava, director general, Indian Council of Medical Research on Thursday.
ICMR Director General said some studies have suggested that antibodies last for three months while some others said they may last in the body for up to five months also.
"Lockdown and containment (measures) have been successful in keeping it low and preventing rapid spread," ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said, citing the sero-survey on COVID-19 spread.
The remarks come amid suspected cases of COVID-19 reinfection being reported from abroad and from Indian states like Telangana, Karnataka, Gujarat, Punjab and Maharashtra.
So far, 1.1 crore doses of Covaxin have been administered. Out of which 93 lakh received the first dose and out of that 4,208 (0.04 per cent) people got the infection which is four per 10,000 individuals. About 17,37,178 people received the second dose of which only 695 (0.04 per cent) tested positive for COVID-19, Bhargava said.
'It leads to more investment, more money put in R&D, expansion and modernisation.'
The government is taking the cutoff of about 100 days if reinfection occurs.
The poll panel carried out a "complete review" of the Covid status and took inputs from medical experts on "safety measures to be ensured" during campaigning and polling.
Thirty districts in the country, including 13 in Kerala, eight in Mizoram, four in Meghalaya, three each in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, two in Sikkim and one in Meghalaya are reporting a weekly positivity rate of over 10 per cent.
Companies in the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector may legally challenge the Haryana government's new law which mandates 75 per cent reservation of jobs in the private sector for locals. "We had earlier gone to the high court against this law, but the court said that it would hear the matter after the law was notified," said Manoj Tyagi, general secretary, IMT Industrial Association. Industries and associations feel that the law will not benefit the state and will hit MSMEs that are just coming out of the crippling effects of the lockdowns owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rahul Bajaj was transparent, outspoken, and not ready to bend the rules, says R C Bhargava.
'All they need is proper leadership.'
Bharat Biotech's Covaxin has demonstrated 77.8 per cent effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 and 65.2 per cent protection against the new Delta variant.
In a letter to the state chief secretaries on Monday, ICMR Director General (D-G) Dr Balram Bhargava said the COVID-19 diagnostic supplies are stabilising because of the indigenous production of the kits.
'We have to ensure the European situation does not occur in India and we don't see a spread like theirs.'
Over 21 per cent of the population, aged 10 years and above, showed evidence of past exposure to COVID-19 in the Indian Council of Medical Research's latest national serosurvey, the government said on Thursday, noting that a large proportion of people are still vulnerable to the infection.
Markets across Delhi witnessed a huge rush over the last weekend before Diwali, with the market associations struggling to manage the crowds amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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