This is due to the newly formed Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, which will get funds from the Centre's share, which means devolution will be for 28 states compared to 29 earlier.
Urban households having car, air conditioners or computer/laptop with internet should be automatically excluded from the list of poor, suggested a Planning Commission-appointed expert group.
By 2022, there is a plan to make an mRNA-technology vaccine, for which it has tied up with Canadian firm Providence Therapeutics.
Paul noted that "three to four months from now, there will be other vaccines and the stockpile will be even bigger. "And more acceleration can be brought about in the vaccination programme," Paul added.
Three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology sought hospital care in November 2019, weeks before Beijing disclosed the COVID-19 pandemic, a United States media report said, citing a previously undisclosed American intelligence document that could add weight to growing calls for a full scale probe of whether the coronavirus may have escaped from China's top bio lab.
The Union health minister said a high-level expert group is going into all the aspects of vaccines and the health ministry is preparing a format in which states will submit lists of priority population groups.
'People on the wait list will be accommodated for vaccination when the scheduled beneficiaries don't turn up.'
Dr Tedros said the team has concluded that leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as alleged by former US president Donald Trump is the "least likely hypothesis" but it requires further probe.
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.
Ireland will act "speedily" to implement legislation providing limited access to abortion if an expert group's recommendation is accepted by the Cabinet, a minister has said, amid the raging controversy over the death of an Indian dentist.
Each person in the immunisation list would be linked with their Aadhaar cards to avoid duplication and to track beneficiaries.
More than 30 vaccine candidates have been supported and they are in different stages of development. Three candidates are in advanced stage of Phase I, II and III trials, and more than four are in advanced pre-clinical development stage, Choubey said.
The Irish cabinet will take up the report of an expert group on abortion on Tuesday even as thousands of people in Ireland protest the tragic death of an Indian dentist. Irish Health Minister James Reilly has said he will be bringing the report of the expert group to the Cabinet on Tuesday.
In a written reply to the House, Railways Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said the recommendations are presently under examination by the ministry.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the Planning Commission to prepare workable models for implementing the proposed universal health coverage programme.
The draft environment impact assessment (EIA) notification, 2020, which involves the procedure of issuing environmental clearances to various projects, was issued by the Environment Ministry in March this year and has received thousands of suggestions from the public.
The death toll due to nCoV rose to 1,016 and the confirmed cases have gone up to 42,638, according to the commission.
'I would go for Bharat Biotech's Covaxin and not Covishield, and that is my personal judgment since at least 11,500 have got at least one dose by now and it has proven to be safe.'
"We have reviewed all concerns raised by the protestors in our report. We also analysed the central expert group committee's report, which has answered all 44 questions raised by protestors. We found the report satisfactory," Srinivasan, former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission, told PTI
The WADA first suspended NDTL in August last year for a period of six months. A fresh round of inspection by the world body, much to the embarrassment of country's sporting establishment, showed that non-conformities still existed.
Non-payment of players is still a significant problem in football and not enough is being done about it, the international union FIFPro said on Thursday.
The Centre is expected to constitute an expert group after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's return from abroad and would seek the guidance of former President A P J Abdul Kalam on allaying the fears of the locals opposed to the controversial Koodankulam nuclear power project.
In an address at the Council of Heads of Government meeting of the eight-member SCO, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu said the most important challenge faced by the region is terrorism, particularly cross-border terrorism, and that India remained concerned about threats emerging from ungoverned spaces as well.
It recognised that there was a "growing demand for more immediate information about the referee's final decisions after a VAR-review."
As the country eagerly awaits an expected coronavirus vaccination drive in January, at least 125 intended beneficiaries each in four states who had registered on the Co-WIN App were on Monday sent SMSes informing them about the time and place of their 'COVID-19 vaccination' under a mock-drill to administer the shots at designated centres.
Phase-I clinical trials have revealed "excellent safety" of the two candidate vaccines indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research and Cadila Healthcare Ltd and their immunogenicity testing is now in progress, minister of state for health Ashwini Choubey informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
There were apprehensions in the SII about rival Bharat Biotech's 'indigenous' tag, opening up shortcuts for it. One senior person, who was very familiar with the sector, told me, 'The message has gone out from the very top. Somani (V G Somani -- drug controller general of India) has told me "Bharat ka karna hai".' A fascinating excerpt from Abantika Ghosh's Billions Under Lockdown: The Inside Story Of India's Fight Against COVID-19.
The Planning Commission in May 2012 had constituted the expert group under the then Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Chairman C Rangarajan to review the Tendulkar Committee methodology for estimating poverty, following an uproar over the number of poor in the country.
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.
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.
The aim of the mission is to accelerate the development of at least six vaccine candidates and ensure that they are licenced and introduced in market for emergency use at the earliest.
"Coming festivals (Chhat, Puja, Dussehra, Deepavali, Id, Xmas, New year) pose a huge challenge in the pandemic control. It has been seen that Onam in Kerala and Ganesh Chaturthi in Maharashtra escalated the pandemic seriously. This must not be allowed to happen in Delhi," the report stated.
A bulletin from the hospital on Sunday night said it has taken expert opinion from a UK-based doctor who examined her and concurred with the present line of management.
Brian McCloskey, an expert on global health security and outbreak prevention said: 'Clearly, having a vaccine would be extremely helpful, not just for the Olympics, but for all of us. But even without a vaccine I think there are other mitigation measures we will look at to make sure we can run the Games safely.'
The government is considering a proposal to expand the types of works under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to provide wider option to beneficiaries.
In a statement, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said it has issued fresh guidelines for surveillance with regard to COVID-19 that will remain in force till January 31, as it asked the states and union territories to keep a strict vigil to prevent any rise in cases during the New Year celebrations and the winter season.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday said the government was aiming to bring down India's Covid-19 mortality rate to less than 1 per cent from the current 1.64 per cent, which is still the lowest in the world.
Under the new methodology, the base year has been changed from 2004-05 to 2011-12 and also in conformity with the international practice, the GDP is now measured at market prices.
'If you delay the diagnosis even by 24 hours, in that 24 hours individuals would have affected more people.' 'So, contact tracing, testing, isolation, quarantine needs to continue.'
France's main anti-doping laboratory, already under a provisional ban, has been suspended from carrying out anti-doping activities for up to six months because of analytical issues, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said on Friday.
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