Five vaccine candidates are in advanced stages of development in India, out of which four are in Phase II/III and one is in Phase-I/II trials.
There are 1,349 candidates in the fray and over 1.45 crore electors are eligible to exercise their franchise in the elections to the 250 wards of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the results of which may have ramifications beyond the national capital.
Resident Doctors' Association of the AIIMS in Delhi, which earlier decided not to join the strike, announced withdrawal of all non-essential services from noon after a junior doctor at its trauma centre was assaulted in the early hours of Monday.
This is the first reshuffle in the Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Modi since he assumed charge for a second term in May 2019.
Once the effects of the slowdown in the economy start to be felt and the feel-good effect of scrapping Article 370 recedes, the BJP fears it would be hard for the party to capture Delhi. Aditi Phadnis reports.
In its letter to Modi, the IMA said it was gratifying to note that only 0.06 per cent of people who received both the doses of vaccine "got minimal" infection by coronavirus, and "very rarely" vaccinated people had a severe lung infection.
Kumar, who had been away in New Delhi since Saturday, returned to the state capital on Monday evening and held an emergency review meeting on the AES situation with officials.
Top officers across various ministries participate in the meeting that started at 8 pm on Saturday. The meeting is currently underway. The country is currently witnessing a second and more severe wave of the pandemic.
The prime minister also asserted that in view of the COVID-19 situation, the states must ensure that people follow all health precautions such as wearing of face masks, hand sanitisation and maintaining an adequate physical distance with each other while undertaking rescue efforts.
"No one has been discharged from the isolation ward. Source of the virus is not confirmed yet."
Indian Council of Medical Research Director General Balram Bhargava said the purpose of the COVID vaccine drive would be to break the chain of viral transmission.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the amendments in the bill have been made after studying global practices and wide consultation within the country.
'Many of them were scared. So, I went to my seniors and said I should be given the vaccine first. I wanted to prove to my colleagues that there is no need to be scared'
Maharashtra and Punjab, which are recording a surge in new COVID-19 cases, tightened curbs on Friday and the chief minister of the western state said lockdown is an option, as India added close to 40,000 cases in the biggest daily increase in nearly four months.
It is important to approach the belief of people in ancient India's achievements with a sense of proportion, balance and empathy, argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Nivedita Mookerji goes in search of the elusive war room to track and respond to the coronavirus threat.
A second wave of Covid driven by the Delta variant engulfed the country in May-June bringing the health system to its knees and leaving people gasping for help.
Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla also flagged a few heinous instances of unruly behaviour by people where the families and relatives of medical professionals, suspected to have died due to COVID-19 infection, were prevented from performing the last rites of the deceased.
The Union Budget on Monday evoked contrasting responses in the political arena with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party hailing it as a vision for an 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' and the Opposition describing it as a 'let down like never before' that was meant to 'deceive' people.
In its morning update, the Union health ministry said the total number of positive cases has reached 2,16,919 with a record spike of 9,304 new cases since Wednesday 8 am across the country, while the death toll has increased to 6,075 with 260 more fatalities in this period. A PTI tally of figures announced by different states and union territories, as of 9.50 pm, showed a higher number of confirmed cases across the country at 2,17,389 and the death toll at 6,233.
Cricket climate change to medical practice, dropped candidates have their non-political life sorted.
The GoM was apprised that as of now, the death rate is around 3.1 per cent while the recovery rate is more than 20 per cent, which is comparatively better than most of the countries and may be taken as a positive effect of the lockdown in the country, along with the cluster management and containment strategy.
Shah also struck a placatory tone in his interview and said that there was coordination between the Centre and the state in tackling Covid in Delhi.
'The police is there to protect Indian citizens, but now we have cops entering the hospitals and ransacking even the ICUs.'
The video conference, which began at 11 am, comes amid indications that the central government may extend the nationwide lockdown with some possible relaxations even as Punjab and Odisha have already announced extending the lockdown beyond April 14 when the current spell of 21-day shutdown across the country ends on Tuesday.
As Delhi hospitals faced a severe oxygen crisis for the third consecutive day, the DDMA roped in three senior bureaucrats on Thursday to ensure a smooth movement of tankers and facilitate oxygen supply to the needy establishments, and directed the police to provide the security logistics from the manufacturers' sites to various health facilities in the city.
As many as 29,557 COVID-19 patients have recuperated in the past 24 hours.
Out of the 12 deaths reported in the last 24 hours some are related to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said in a daily media briefing.
The Centre wrote to Maharashtra, Punjab and Delhi governments on Wednesday flagging below-par vaccination of eligible beneficiaries, including healthcare workers.
'It indicates the grooming of the party's new leadership.' 'It is also a signal to the states that these ministers represent.'
India's COVID-19 cases and deaths per million population are amongst the lowest in the world, the govt says.
'The Modi government's lack of foresight has compelled India to become an importer of vaccines today and even now, their "vaccine strategy is flawed and discriminatory'
India is the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic after the United States, Brazil, Russia and the United Kingdom, according to the Johns Hopkins University data.
In his remarks in New Delhi at an all-party meeting held virtually, Modi said healthcare workers involved in treating COVID-19 patients, frontline workers, who include police personnel and municipal staff, and old people suffering from serious conditions would be inoculated on priority.
BJP workers and mourners queued up in large numbers outside the party headquarters since morning to pay their last respects to the leader.
Talking about the Tablighi Jamaat congregation, Agarwal said, "If the Tablighi Jamaat incident had not taken place and we compare the rate of doubling -- that is in how many days the cases have doubled, we will see that currently it is 4.1 days (including Jamaat cases) and if the incident had not taken place and additional cases had not come then the doubling rate would have been 7.4 days."
Easing restrictions, all private hospitals were on Tuesday allowed to give the vaccines if they adhere to the laid down norms, while the 9 am to 5 pm timing was also done away with.
During the day, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan held a meeting to review preparedness for COVID-19 management, through video conference with health ministers, chief secretaries of all states and UTs, central ministers and representatives from the related organisations and stressed on the need for keeping testing and quarantine facilities, isolation wards, and labs in active readiness.
As the Indian Army reported its first case of the infection with a 34-year-old soldier testing positive in Leh, the Army said it has taken a series of precautionary measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus among the forces such as checking flu symptoms among soldiers on their return from leave and cancelling non-essential travel, conferences and recruitment drives.
Modi had on Friday urged people to turn off lights at their homes for nine minutes at 9pm to display the country's collective resolve and solidarity to defeat the virus.
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