E-waste accounts for 70 per cent of Indian landfills.
The Army, the National Disaster Response Force, police and the fire force along with the locals began rescue operations on Sunday morning at Koottickal and Kokkayar panchayats where over a dozen people are listed to be missing due to numerous landslides accompanied by heavy downpour since Saturday.
Modi did not consider these deaths important enough to express regrets. Will these lives continue to count for nothing? asks Jyoti Punwani.
The Bill was supported by the members across party lines, however, some suggested to add in its purview hospital sanitary staff, ASHA (accredited social health activist) workers and 'Corona warriors' in emergency services such as police and personnel from other departments.
'The Modi government must create conditions to integrate millions into the rural economy as many migrants are certainly not going to return to live an undignified life,' notes Ramesh Menon.
Gates, 66, on Tuesday, said that "I know it's frustrating to go into another holiday season with COVID looming over us. But it won't be like this forever. Someday the pandemic will end, and the better we look after each other, the sooner that time will come."
Addressing an online question and answer session, WHO's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said there would be at least one effective vaccine by 2021 but it would be available 'only in limited quantities'. "Most people agree, it's starting with healthcare workers, and frontline workers, but even there, you need to define which of them are at highest risk, and then the elderly, and so on," Swaminathan said on prioritising who gets the vaccine first.
Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute, Zydus Cadila, Panacea Biotec, Indian Immunologicals, Mynvax and Biological E are among the domestic pharma firms working on the coronavirus vaccines in India.
'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.'
As the virus continued to spread its tentacles across India, several parts, including Kashmir valley headed towards a virtual lockdown with the administration restricting movement of people in several parts and banning all public transport in Srinagar city.
Dramatic visuals showed fidgety people inside the cable cars that hung in air against the backdrop of a rocky hill cliff that overlooked a densely-forested valley.
Experts consider Sebi's takeover code in its present form to be on a par with any foreign code governing public mergers and acquisitions.
India has the fourth highest number of malaria cases in the world.
Only investors who understand the significance of ESG investing should enter these funds for the long term, advises Sarbajeet K Sen.
A June 11 survey by cLocalCircles across 299 districts puts overall vaccine hesitancy levels at 18 per cent, with 11 per cent of the respondents saying they were not convinced if the currently available vaccines would protect them against the new strains; and 5 per cent said they do not plan to take the vaccine at all.
'You will not have a vaccine for everyone initially.'
'I am not afraid of BJP. I am not armed with lathi or stone, let them come to me and reply to my questions which they will not'
'You cannot fight a disease as complex as COVID-19 without a carefully calibrated, localised response.'
Casual labour, which is the type of employment provided by agriculture, yields much lower wages -- of the order of Rs 291 per day. Labour would not voluntarily shift to this lowest wage-rate sector unless it had no better option, observes Mahesh Vyas.
The alleged use of the Pegasus software to spy on journalists, human rights defenders, politicians and others in a number of countries including India triggered concerns over issues relating to privacy.
For vaccination, online registration is mandatory. Thereafter, eligible beneficiaries will be informed on their registered mobile number about the nearest vaccination facility, and the date and time of vaccination.
Nine Indian reporters were among 110 journalists killed around the world in 2015, a media watchdog group said, dubbing India as "Asia's deadliest country" for mediapersons.
Scientists around the world, including in India, suggest it hasn't been tested properly given the time constraint and there may not be enough evidence to prove its efficacy.
After assuming power in 2014 with a full majority of its own, the BJP-led NDA government started an ambitious process of reforming labour laws in the form of codes aimed at making the framework less cumbersome with a variety of alterations. It had planned four codes each for industrial relations, wages, social security and welfare, and occupational safety, health and working conditions. To this end, 35 central labour laws were to be converted into four codes that would have had the virtue of streamlining labour relations. But none of the proposed code Bills could be converted into a law principally because neither trade unions nor industry representatives came on board. They hold the key to India's low-growth-high unemployment paradigm but the government may struggle to push them through this time as well. Somesh Jha explains why
Though authorities and NGOs have made arrangements for their food, most of them want to go back to their native places to escape the hardship brought by the sweeping curbs.
The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Union ministry of home affairs to provide two additional companies of the Central Armed Police Forces to secure every polling booth during the Tripura municipal polls.
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said in its latest Yellow Card monitoring of the coronavirus vaccine programme this week that of the 18.1 million people who had the Oxford vaccine in the UK, 30 people developed blood clots and seven had died as of March 24.
There is no word yet on the progress of rescue operations for the accommodation barge SS-3 and the Sagar Bhushan oil rig.
Vaccine major Bharat Biotech on Wednesday said its COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, has demonstrated an interim vaccine efficacy of 81 per cent in the Phase 3 clinical trials.
The Paytm employee, who tested positive for the contagious disease with flu like symptoms on Wednesday, came in touch with 91 people in Gurgaon, an official said, citing his counterpart in the suburban town.
The Union health ministry officials also said India was at the second stage as there is still no 'hard evidence' to say that there has been community transmission of the fast-spreading coronavirus, remarks which may provide anxious citizens with much needed assurance and hope.
India Inc has weathered many a storm during Covid-19: from supply chain disruptions to demand dips, steep increase in input costs to shortage of key raw materials. As most companies navigated unprecedented challenges on multiple fronts, realisation dawned also about the criticality of employee welfare in the survival of the business. And it was the human resources (HR) department that faced the greatest test on this front.
The Centre told the Bombay high court on Tuesday that a door-to-door COVID-19 vaccination programme for senior citizens, specially-abled, bed-ridden and wheelchair-bound people is currently not possible, but it has decided to start 'near-to-door' inoculation centres.
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 cases reported on Wednesday include a couple and their two-year-old daughter in Rajasthan who had recently returned from Italy. The patients belong to Rajasthan's Jhunjhunu and had returned from Italy on March 8.
Indian roads are far more unsafe than its railways. A sense of urgency is required to tackle India's embarrassing record on road safety.
Coronavirus doesn't remain active in nasal and oral cavities 12 to 24 hours after the death of an infected person as a result of which the risk of transmission from the deceased is highly unlikely, All India Institute of Medical Sciences Forensic Chief Dr Sudhir Gupta said.
'This song truly touched my heart, and I know the emotion will speak to many.'
The picturesque landscape of Pettimudi was flattened into a rough patch of boulders and mud with parts of asbestos and tin sheets seen scattered around.
