NATIONAL NEWS
Election Commission of India to take call on holding physical poll rallies today
The Election Commission of India will hold a meeting with the Health Secretaries and the Chief Health Secretaries of the five-poll bound states on January 22, 2022. The officials will review a ban on holding physical roadshows and rallied by the political parties before assembly elections.
Ladakh gets its first open synthetic track
Ladakh has got its open synthetic track and the football turf in Leh under Khelo India Programme. According to a coach, before this, the athletes had to run on the roads but now they can witness improvement because they can now measure distance and speed easily.
Government releases guidelines for management of COVID-19 in children
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued guidelines for the management of COVID-19 in children. The Government has recommended not to use antivirals or monoclonal antibodies for children less than 18 years of age irrespective of the severity of infection.
Supreme Court to steer ex gratia payment to kin of COVID-19 deceased
The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to take the reins and marshal the efforts to pay compensation to families that lost their relatives to COVID-19, after noticing some States responded to the humanitarian move in a lukewarm fashion. A Bench of Justices M.R. Shah and Sanjiv Khanna told the States that many of these families were economically challenged. They may have been further crippled by the fact that COVID-19 took away their sole breadwinner. The court said payment of ₹ 50,000 each as ex gratia to the loved ones of every COVID-19 patient was a welfare gesture and essential to a welfare state. File The court said payment of ₹50,000 each as ex gratia to the loved ones of every COVID-19 patient was a welfare gesture, and so, essential to a welfare State. Delays and bureaucratic red-tape to release the money or process the application did not augur well. Moreover, applications for compensation ought not to be rejected merely on technical glitches. Every reason for denying a claim should be recorded, it noted. The court ordered the States to reach out especially to children orphaned by the pandemic and whose details have been uploaded in the Bal Swaraj portal of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). The Commission, through its web portal, is identifying and collecting information from across the country about children orphaned, abandoned or left with one parent.
No foreign dignitary as Republic Day chief guest this year too Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host a meeting with five Central Asian leaders virtually next week, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced on Wednesday, formally indicating that they will not travel to Delhi, as planned, as chief guests at the Republic Day celebrations. An official also confirmed that there will be no foreign dignitary as chief guest during the events around January 26. The MEA had not officially confirmed their presence, but sources said the Presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan had in December accepted an invitation to jointly attend the parade and Republic Day reception. They were due to also participate in the first India-Central Asia summit meeting during their visit to Delhi. Sources said proposals to this effect had been sent out to Presidents Kassym-Jomart Tokayev (Kazakhstan), Sadyr Japarov (Kyrgyzstan), Emomali Rahmon (Tajikistan), Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov (Turkmenistan) and Shavkat Mirziyoyev (Uzbekistan), suggesting changing the summit to the virtual format. This is the second year in a row the government has had to cancel invitations to chief guests due to the COVID-19 pandemic after U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was unable to attend the celebrations in 2021. Foreign leaders have graced the Republic Day parades every year barring 1952, 1953 and 1966. The then Indonesian President Sukarno was the first chief guest to grace Republic Day in 1950. In 2020, Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro was the chief guest.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
WEF announces annual meeting to be held in person in May 2022
The World Economic Forum has announced its annual meeting to be held in person for the first time during the pandemic. The meeting will be from May 22 to May 26, 2022, at Davos in Switzerland. The annual gathering of the forum has not been held since January 2020 due to the pandemic.
World faces shortage of lithium for electric vehicle batteries
Lithium is in hot demand due to rapidly growing production of electric vehicles that use lithium-ion batteries, but there is a global supply shortage of the metal, with western countries racing to bring on new mines to compete with China. The Serbian government on Thursday cancelled licenses for a major lithium project owned by Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto Plc, which industry experts said is likely to prolong the supply shortage to mid-decade. Lithium is currently produced from hard rock or brine mines. Australia is the world’s biggest supplier, with production from hard rock mines. Argentina, Chile and China are mainly producing it from salt lakes. Total global production, measured as lithium carbonate equivalent, was forecast in December at 485,000 tonnes in 2021, growing to 615,000 tonnes in 2022 and 821,000 tonnes in 2023, according to Australia’s Department of Industry.
