Asserting that India is on track to vaccinate its entire adult population by December, top officials on Monday said a blueprint is in place to ensure a total supply of 187.2 crore doses by the year-end that would be enough for the country's 94 crore 18-plus population.
The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in India has crossed 1.8 crore, the Union health ministry said on Friday.
Giving rise to fresh worries about the COVID-19 pandemic rearing its head again, the R-factor, which indicates the speed at which the infection is spreading in the country, has risen recently leading to a sluggish pace in the decline of active cases while Kerala and northeast states have emerged as regions of concern.
It is learnt that the India's top military brass is constantly monitoring the evolving situation even as the United States said the aggressive behaviour by Chinese troops was a reminder of the threat posed by China.
Singh addresses a first-ever meeting of chief ministers of five Himalayan states.
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.
Laxmi Sorte and Kaustav Ghosh are on a 101-day road trip across India to support and encourage local businesses affected by the pandemic.
The govt warned the second wave of coronavirus infection in India was not yet over even though the weekly positivity rate was showing an overall declining trend.
'The Chinese forces in the narrow Chumbi Valley are currently in the line of sight and fire of Indian forces poised on the ridges along the Sikkim-Tibet border.' 'Aware of this vulnerability, the Chinese have been eyeing the Doklam plateau,' explains national security expert Nitin A Gokhale.
'The choice of Dhoka La for the intrusion by Chinese troops is significant and suggests a twin objective of pressuring Thimpu to allow Beijing to establish an embassy there and reinforcing Chinese claims on Arunachal Pradesh,' warns former RA&W officer Jayadev Ranade.
Six states and UTs -- Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Tripura and Daman & Diu -- have not spent a single rupee from the fund allocated by the Centre, according to data shared by the minister in Parliament in response to a question.
We can make a beginning by openly acknowledging the Russian help in 1971 victory when President Putin visits India on 6 December 2021. Showing gratitude to a friend is part of our DNA, notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
In his initial remarks, Army Chief General M M Naravane briefed the commanders about the overall situation following which detailed discussions on the matter took place, the sources said.
The Padma Bhushan was conferred on 17 personalities including N Chandrasekharan, chairman of Tata Sons, Krishna and Suchita Ella of Bharat Biotech, Cyrus Poonawalla, Satya Nadella, chairman of Microsoft, Sunder Pichai, chairman of Google.
The new Council of Ministers has representation from almost all the states, except Andhra Pradesh and the north-eastern states of Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura.
The Sikkim government is planning to convert an artificial lake, formed by a massive landslide in the state's northern part in August last year, into a tourist spot.
The amount of financial assistance to each state and Union Territories is based on their COVID-19 caseload.
He also declared that 34,000 posts of paramilitary constables were upgraded as head constables.
The total coronavirus cases mounted to 52,14,677, while the death toll climbed to 84,372 with the virus claiming 1,174 lives in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.
Maharashtra has reported the highest daily rise of 40,414 COVID-19 cases, followed by 3,082 in Karnataka, 2,870 in Punjab, 2,276 in Madhya Pradesh, 2,270 in Gujarat, 2,216 in Kerala, 2,194 in Tamil Nadu and 2,153 in Chhattisgarh, the ministry said.
The second dose of anti-coronavirus vaccine will be administered to healthcare workers from February 13, the Centre said on Thursday, highlighting that 45 per cent of them have been inoculated so far.
The "caution level" among the troops has also been raised.
'We can't be outliers. We can't be bystanders. We have to be players.' 'The Taliban also need India to balance the winners in this game.'
On the shopping list: Light tanks, anti-tank guided missiles, UAVs, assault rifles, fighter aircraft.
Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Science, claimed that India is provoking China because it wanted to prove to the United States that it could contain China while Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in the US.
"We are capable of properly resolving the issues between us through dialogue and consultation. We do not need the intervention of the third party", he said.
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