The richest one per cent in India now own more than 40 per cent of the country's total wealth, while the bottom half of the population together share just 3 per cent of wealth, a new study showed on Monday. Releasing the India supplement of its annual inequality report on the first day of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, rights group Oxfam International said that taxing India's ten-richest at 5 per cent can fetch entire money to bring children back to school. "A one-off tax on unrealized gains from 2017-2021 on just one billionaire, Gautam Adani, could have raised Rs 1.79 lakh crore, enough to employ more than five million Indian primary school teachers for a year," it added.
Voluntary use of masks must be promoted in the country in view of Covid-19's new XE variant, healthcare experts said, calling it the single-most effective intervention against all variants of the coronavirus.
"As of now, there is no data from any country to suggest these new subvariants are more clinically severe," Chief scientist at WHO clarified.
Stressing that the Covid virus may continue to transmit for a "very long time", senior WHO official Poonam Khetrapal Singh says the level of immunity in a community, through vaccination and previous infection, will determine whether it will become endemic in the long run.
The study also indicated that the risk seems to increase with each infection.
In the letter, Somani said the samples of four made-in-India cough syrups linked to the deaths of 66 children in Gambia which were tested in government laboratory here were found to be complying with specifications and not to have been contaminated with DEG or EG according to the test reports.
Senior Communist Party of India-Marxist leader and former Kerala health minister K K Shailaja has declined to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award as it was instituted in the name of late President of the Philippines, who was known allegedly for his brutality against the Communists.
Modi gave directions to officials during a high-level meeting to review the status of COVID-19 and Omicron, the new variant of concern (VOC), and said "we should be 'satark' (vigilant) and 'saavdhan' (cautious)".
'Vaccination of all remaining unvaccinated at-risk people and consideration of a booster dose for those 40 years of age and over, first targeting the most high-risk / high-exposure may be considered,' the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Sequencing Consortium (INSACOG) said in its weekly bulletin dated November 29.
The Jharkhand government has asked health officials to remain on alert and arrange isolation beds in all district hospitals after a seven-year-old girl was detected with symptoms similar to monkeypox in Garhwa, an official said on Wednesday.
Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert from Peking University First Hospital, warned that Beijing may experience a spike in severe COVID-19 cases over the next fortnight.
The average age of those who died was 80.3, and 90 per cent of the fatalities were aged 65 or over, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday stressed the need to ensure adequate health infrastructure at the district level and asked officials to maintain coordination regarding this with the states, in view of the prevailing COVID-19 situation.
'We have the technical expertise, and international collaborations. We also have robust real-time data. We are a university of pandemic management. If the ministry neglects the role of NCDC, it is the loss of the country'
The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) has recommended the environmental release of the genetically modified (GM) mustard variety DMH (Dhara Mustard Hybrid)-11, paving the way for the commercialisation of the country's first GM food crop. The GEAC said the recommendation was valid for four years from the date the approval letter was issued. Further studies and coordinated trials will have to be conducted jointly with the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) within two years, according to the minutes of the GEAC meeting held on October 18, which was released on Wednesday.
As the petition points out, new medical colleges entail adjunct government hospitals, thus making specialised medical care that much more accessible to the vast majority of population that otherwise could not afford high-cost medical care in the private sector, N Sathiya Moorthy points out.
The BJP had criticised the MVA government saying that it was "unethical" on its part to issue so many orders in a short span.
The disbursal included Rs 1,000 crore for migrant welfare and over Rs 1,392 crore for procurement of Covid vaccine doses.
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
Amid growing concerns over the spurt in COVID-19 cases in China and some other countries, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said the focus is to ensure that no unknown variant of the virus enters India and at the same time there is no impediment to travelling.
In a letter to the principal health secretary of Maharashtra that was also marked to all states and Union Territories (UTs), the Union Health Ministry said this surge is of particular concern from the public health point of view.
Shanghai on Monday reported 425 confirmed and 8,581 asymptomatic domestically transmitted cases, the highest daily increases since the latest outbreak, bringing the total number of COVID-19 infections in the city to over 60,000.
'The deaths of the children in the Gambia would batter India's reputation as the developing world's pharmacy.'
The decision followed talks with Greek authorities, UEFA said.
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.
"Provide enough infrastructure and money to carry out surveillance and set up a robust routine surveillance machinery for the country to monitor any and every infectious disease'
In a communication to chief secretaries of all states and union territories, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla also said that existing protocols for curbing the spread of COVID-19 will continue till November 30.
''None of the existing vaccines have 100% efficacy.' 'Each vaccine will work openly on a certain percentage of the population.'
He voiced concern that confusion, complacency and inconsistency in public health measures and their application are driving transmission and costing lives. Cautioning that the disease is not flu, he said young, healthy people have died from the coronavirus.
In its weekly report on the pandemic, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday that the incidence of COVID-19 has increased globally, initially driven predominantly by transmission of the Delta variant, particularly in the European region.
'Viral infections rise in winter and better care needs to be taken in the next few months.'
'The government is scared of this Congress yatra, that is why various orders and letters are being issued'
22 cases of the Delta Plus variant of the coronavirus have been detected in India, with 16 of them being reported from Maharashtra and the remaining from Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, the government said.
Insufficient testing at the border and the impossibility of controlling people's movements mean that the Games could exacerbate the spread of the infectious Delta variant of the virus, a prominent public health expert said.
The double mutant variant, also known as B.1.617, is mostly dominating Maharashtra (761), West Bengal (124), Delhi (107) and Gujarat (102).
'The RSS has opposed the introduction of GM Mustard tooth and nail, but PM Modi does not give a hoot for what they think.'
The affidavit was filed in response to a petition seeking a direction to declare the PM CARES Fund a 'State' under the Constitution to ensure transparency in its functioning.
Deaths are significantly less in the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison to the second wave, and the current surge is not witnessing increase in severe illness or death following high vaccination uptake, the government said on Thursday.
As on date, there has been no report of any suspected or confirmed case of Monkeypox in Mumbai, an official from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) public health department said.
SDMC officials said on Wednesday that a closure notice was issued to the Aquila Restaurant located at Ansal Plaza in Andrews Ganj for operating without a valid licence.
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