'If you don't have a strong political leadership, however much expertise a country may have, in pandemic preparedness or infectious disease, will not matter.' 'It's really about having strong political leadership, that is proactive, that prioritises taking the right action.' 'And if you don't have that, then you will have a much worse pandemic experience.'
During a virtual meeting with health ministers and senior officials of states in view of the recent surge in coronavirus cases in some parts of the world, he said, "The Centre and states need to work in tandem and in a collaborative spirit as was done during the previous surges for Covid prevention and management."
By Thursday, 830 confirmed cases of pneumonia, caused by the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), had been reported in 29 provincial-level regions in the country.
It said Delhi is facing an unprecedented heatwave with temperatures hovering around 50 degrees Celsius in some parts for the first time in the city's history.
When faced with a medical emergency, you pay cash or use your credit card, instead of asking why the hospital is not accepting your cashless medical insurance.
The Punjab chief minister said he was asked by Kejriwal to visit different places for campaigning for INDIA bloc candidates.
The deadly fire has claimed at least 85 lives.
The B.1.617 variant was first detected in India and was divided in three lineages -- B.1.617.1, B.1.617.2 and B.1.617.3.
Experts recommend awaiting the findings of the 2021 Census, which is yet to be conducted, before introducing population control policies.
About 140 people out of 193 who were admitted to various government medical facilities after they consumed the spurious liquor on Tuesday night were currently stable, Kallakurichi district collector M S Prasanth said.
A day after the city saw huge crowds of mid-night revellers thronging the eastern metropolis's busy Park Street to celebrate Christmas, health experts and doctors cautioned the state government against allowing more such gatherings especially during the New Year festivities
The US will lift all restrictions for fully vaccinated international travellers, including from India, from November 8 but they will have to show proof of a negative coronavirus test before boarding a flight to the country, the White House has announced.
Stressing on the need to protect both lives and livelihoods, he said public health action in India and across the world must be continually guided by evidence from four key questions -- how transmissible is the variant, severity of the disease it causes, how well vaccines and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection protect and how common people perceive risk and follow control measures.
The National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune under the ICMR has isolated the monkeypox virus from the clinical specimen of a patient, which can pave the way for development of diagnostic kits and vaccines against the disease, officials said on Wednesday.
This year's Wimbledon Championships have so far survived the cull of the world's most prestigious sporting events due to the coronavirus pandemic, but it seems only a matter of time before they are postponed or cancelled. With London in its first week of lockdown, All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) officials are weighing up their limited options.
The number of cases due to the mosquito-transmitted disease in the southern state went went up to 14 on Friday following confirmation of 13 additional samples by the National Institute of Virology.
Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba chaired a high-level meet with representatives of states/UTs to also review and discussed the COVID-19 management and response strategy through video conference.
With variants cropping up at regular intervals, Jha acknowledged that they are a concern as a very rapid evolution of this virus is being seen over the time.
Maharashtra has emerged as the leader in the COVID-19 vaccination drive as it has administered vaccine doses to 43,42,646 people, an official said on Thursday.
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
Elections are not won or lost by expounding on such macro-economic matters. For the aam admi, what matters in manifestos are promises that will improve their quality of life, notes Vinayak Chatterjee.
Several countries started screening travellers coming from China, especially from Wuhan to detect symptoms like fever.
The Zika virus has already been found in some mosquitoes taken as samples from Sindhi Camp while few mosquitoes collected from densely populated Shastri Nagar had already been found to be carriers of the virus leading to suspicion they are behind the spread of the infection.
The Delhi high court on Friday advanced to December 10 the hearing on pleas to declare the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund a 'State' under the Constitution and a 'public authority' under the Right to Information Act to ensure transparency in its functioning.
In his absence, the party stares at uncertainty as many of its other senior leaders are either in jail or in political obscurity.
The Centre has warned it is likely that the spread of the new variant will outpace the Delta variant where there is community transmission.
The approval by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) was given on the basis of recommendations submitted by a COVID-19 subject expert committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).
Emergency measures are needed to avoid "a total collapse in public security, health, education, transport and environmental management," a decree in the state's Official Gazette said.
A third wave of COVID-19 -- if it occurs -- is unlikely to be as severe as the second wave given the extent of spread of coronavirus infections that has already taken place in the country, according to a study.
The government on Friday warned about the declining compliance to mask usage in the country amid concerns over the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and urged people to follow COVID-appropriate behaviour and get vaccinated to prevent surge in cases.
Even when China's widely-publicised exchange with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in response to the queries over the reports of surging cases of mycoplasma pneumonia and influenza flu triggered the worldwide alert, including in India, China said the spike in respiratory diseases was due to an 'immunity gap'.
IT firm Cognizant on Friday said it will give employees who are at associate level and below in India and the Philippines, an additional payment of 25 per cent of base pay for April in recognition of their extraordinary continuity-of-service efforts amid the covid-19 outbreak. The move is expected to benefit over 1,30,000 Cognizant employees in India.
The government will provide free visas to 5 lakh tourists visiting India, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday. Announcing measures to revive the tourism sector battered by Covid-19, Sitharaman said financial support would be provided to more than 11,000 registered tourist guides, travel and tourism stakeholders. She said once the visa issuance for international travel is restarted, the first five lakh tourists will be issued visas free of charge.
The study also indicated that the risk seems to increase with each infection.
Blame the voter, who invariably chooses the promise of hand-outs today in preference to a vague promise of, say, better schools tomorrow. Getting the Supreme Court to issue an edict, or Parliament to pass a law, is no solution, observes T N Ninan.
Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, who inaugurated the new Rs 24.70 crore unit with an added capacity of 283 million pieces to the plant's exisisting capacity, said the public sector unit with production facilities here and Belgaum with an annual production capciaty of 1.32 billion condoms already possessed ten per cent of the global share.
The panel headed by Justice (retired) Ritu Raj Awasthi has submitted its report to the government, calling for an exhaustive overhaul of the law.
The National Human Rights Commission, in its report, also observed that the "pervasive fear of reprisal, coupled with the power dynamics at play, acted as a formidable barrier", preventing individuals from voicing their grievances.
The government plans to bring down its stake to 26 per cent in these two banks, which are yet to be identified. This may not come in the way of getting investors for these banks, provided the government is willing to step back rather than run them the way it had been doing for over five decades since these banks were nationalised, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
