Tag: motivation

CURRENT AFFAIRS
16 May 2021

NATIONAL NEWS:

 

A) Delhi Police arrests 15 people, lodges 17 FIRs over posters critical of Modi’s handling of vaccination drive.

Delhi Police has registered 17 FIRs and arrested 15 people for allegedly pasting posters critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in connection with the vaccination drive against Covid-19, officials said on Saturday, PTI reported. The posters reading ‘Modiji humare bachon ki vaccine videsh kyu bhej diya (PM why did you send vaccines of our children to foreign countries?) were pasted in several parts of the city, they said. On Thursday, police received information about the posters, following which senior officers of the districts were alerted. And based on further complaints, as many as 17 FIRs were registered under sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the Indian Penal Code and other relevant sections including section 3 of the Prevention of Defacement of Property Act across various districts of the Delhi Police, the officials said. A senior police officer said, More FIRs are likely to be registered if further complaints are received in this regard. As of now, investigation is underway to ascertain as to on whose behalf these posters were being put up at various places across the city and accordingly further action will be taken in the matter. Delhi Police comes under the purview of the Central government, and reports to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

B) Plea in SC seeks CBSE, ICSE Class 12 exams cancellation.

A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court to direct the authorities to cancel the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) exams for Class 12 students. The petition asked both the boards to instead conceive an objective methodology to declare the Class 12 results within a specific time-frame. Issue a writ of mandamus directing the respondents to cancel the examination of Class 12 and devise an objective methodology to declare the result within a specific time-frame, advocate Mamta Sharma, who filed the petition, urged. He said the CBSE and ICSE notifications deferring the exams to an unspecified date should be quashed. Students cannot be made to suffer uncertainty in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. There should not be any uncertainty regarding exams crucial to the future academic study of Class 12 students, the plea stated. Last year, the apex court asked the boards to determine and declare Class 12 exam results on the basis of their earlier grading. The petitioner said the same methodology could be used this year too. Both the boards cannot remain mute spectators and opt to wait and watch for the pandemic wave to ebb. Delay would put the future of the students in peril. The boards had cancelled the Class 10 exams. The same should be done for Class 12 students. As far as the innocent students of Class12 are concerned, a step-motherly, arbitrary, inhuman direction have been issued to postpone their final examination for an unspecified duration instead of following the directions propounded and accepted by them last year, the petition said.

C) Govt must explain massive under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths in Gujarat, says Congress.

The Congress on Saturday raised the issue of under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths in some states, especially in Gujarat, and demanded an explanation from both the central and the state governments. Congress leaders P Chidambaram and Shaktisinh Gohil in a joint press conference pointed out that the deaths in Gujarat this year were more than double the number in 2020 and said that the substantial increase can only be attributed to a pandemic. The two Congress leaders cited a news report which showed that Gujarat had issued about 1,23,000 death certificates between March 1 and May 10, as against about 58,000 certificates issued during the same period last year, and said they got these verified after collecting data from 33 districts of the state. The Congress leaders said the sum of the number of the death certificates collected nearly tallies with the numbers published and that comes to 1,23,873 in 2021 against 58,068 last year. However, during the period March 1 to May 10, the government of Gujarat has officially admitted to only 4,218 Covid-related deaths. Chidambaram said the difference between the increase in the number of death certificates (65,805) and the official Covid-related deaths (4,218) must be explained. It cannot be explained as natural annual increase’ or due to other causes, he noted. They have a strong suspicion that the bulk of the increased number of deaths is due to COVID and the state government is suppressing the true number of Covid-related deaths. They have a strong suspicion that the Government of India, in conjunction with some state governments, is suppressing the true numbers of new infections and Covid-related deaths. If our suspicions are true, this is a grave misdeed apart from being a national shame and a national tragedy, he said.

D) Government’s ‘disastrous’ vaccination policy’ will ensure third wave, says Rahul.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday called for a national vaccine strategy and claimed that the government’s disastrous inoculation policy will ensure a devastating third wave in the country. He also accused the Prime Minister of making mother Ganga cry after bodies of suspected coronavirus victims were found floating in the river. The Government of India’s (GOI’s) disastrous vaccine strategy will ensure a devastating third wave. It can’t be repeated enough. India needs a proper vaccine strategy, he said on Twitter. Tagging media reports which had documented that over 2,000 bodies were found in a 1,140 km area along the Ganga, he said, One who used to say ‘Ganga’ has called him has made Mother Ganga cry. Gandhi and the Congress have been attacking the prime minister and his government over its vaccine strategy and handling of the pandemic.

E) Cyclone Tauktae has intensified, moving towards Gujarat: IMD.

Cyclonic storm Tauktae has intensified and is heading towards the coast of Gujarat and the Union Territory of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, though it could bring gusty winds and showers to Mumbai, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Saturday. The cyclonic storm is very likely to intensify further into a very severe cyclonic storm by late Saturday night, the IMD said, adding it was very likely to move north-northwestwards and cross Gujarat coast between Porbandar and Naliya around May 18. As it would bring very heavy rainfall in that region, cities like Mumbai would not be affected much, the IMD added. There will be strong winds and heavy rainfall at isolated places on May 17 over north Konkan, including Mumbai, the met department said.

F) Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments.

The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 2,45,77,613 with the death toll at 2,68,139. Bodies of the deceased are buried in the sand near the banks of the Ganga allegedly due to shortage of wood for cremation during the second wave of coronavirus at Shringverpur Ghat in Prayagraj on May 15, 2021. The West Bengal government on Saturday announced a complete lockdown from Sunday till May 30 in order to contain the spread of Covid-19 in the State. We are taking some strict measures to contain the pandemic, starting Sunday 6 am till 6 pm of May 30, Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay said. During this period, all government and private offices, shopping complexes, malls, bars, sports complexes, pubs and beauty parlours will remain closed, he said. Movement of private vehicles, taxis, buses, metro rail, suburban trains will also be disallowed during the 15- day lockdown period. Meanwhile, in Tamil Nadu, the vaccination programme for people aged between 18 and 45 will start in two or three days. The State’s Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma. Subramanian on Saturday said that Tamil Nadu had already paid ₹46 crore for 15 lakh doses of vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, of which five lakh doses have arrived. The drive to vaccinate people in the18-45 age group will soon start in one of the locations in Chennai in two to three days, said the Minister after holding a review meeting in Coimbatore along with Food Minister R. Sakkarapani and Forests Minister K. Ramachandran.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

A) Israeli air strikes destroy Gaza building that housed media outlets, kills several Palestinian children.

An Israeli airstrike destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed offices of The Associated Press and other media outlets on Friday, the latest step by the military to silence reporting from the territory amid its battle with the militant group Hamas. The strike came nearly an hour after the military ordered people to evacuate the building, which also housed Al-Jazeera, other offices, and residential apartments. The strike brought the entire 12-storey building down, collapsing with a gigantic cloud of dust. There was no immediate explanation for why it was attacked. A fireball and smoke billow up into the air during an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City, in Gaza Strip on May 15, 2021. The strike came hours after another Israeli air raid on a densely populated refugee camp in Gaza City killed at least 10 Palestinians from an extended family, mostly children, in the deadliest single strike of the current conflict. The latest outburst of violence began in Jerusalem and has spread across the region, with Jewish-Arab clashes and rioting in mixed cities of Israel. There were also widespread Palestinian protests Friday in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces shot and killed 11 people. The spiralling violence has raised fears of a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising at a time when there have been no peace talks in years. Palestinians on Saturday were marking Nakba (Catastrophe) Day, when they commemorate the estimated 700,000 people who were expelled from or fled their homes in what was now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation. That raised the possibility of even more unrest. U.S. diplomat Hady Amr arrived Friday as part of Washington’s efforts to de-escalate the conflict, and the U.N. Security Council was set to meet Sunday. But Israel turned down an Egyptian proposal for a one-year truce that Hamas rulers had accepted, an Egyptian official said Friday, to discuss the negotiations. Since Monday night, Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, which has pounded the Gaza Strip with strikes. In Gaza, at least 139 people have been killed, including 39 children and 22 women; in Israel, eight people have been killed, including the death Saturday of a man killed by a rocket that hit in Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv. The strike on the building housing media offices came in the afternoon, after the building’s owner received a call from the Israeli military warning that it would be hit. AP’s staff and others in the building evacuated immediately. Al-Jazeera, the news network funded by Qatar’s government, broadcast the airstrikes live as the building collapsed.

B) Cairn Energy sues Air India in U.S. court to enforce $1.2 billion arbitration award.

Cairn Energy has sued flagship carrier Air India to enforce a $1.2 billion arbitration award that it won in a tax dispute against the country, according to a U.S. District Court filing reviewed by Reuters. The move ratchets up pressure on the Union government to pay the sum of $1.2 billion plus interest and costs that the British firm Cairn was awarded by an arbitration tribunal in December. The body ruled India breached an investment treaty with Britain and said New Delhi was liable to pay. Cairn filed the lawsuit on May 14 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking to make Air India liable for the judgment that was awarded to Cairn. The lawsuit argued that the carrier, as a state-owned company, is legally indistinct from the state itself. The nominal distinction between India and Air India is illusory and serves only to aid India in improperly shielding its assets from creditors like [Cairn], the filing said. Air India and the Union government did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment. In February, Cairn filed a separate case in a U.S. court to recognise and confirm the arbitration award, including payments due since 2014 and interest compounded semi-annually. Responding to queries about the case filed in a U.S. Court, a company spokesperson said, Cairn is taking the necessary legal steps to protect shareholders’ interests in the absence of a resolution to the arbitral award. Cairn remains open to continuing constructive dialogue with the Government of India to arrive at a satisfactory outcome to this long-running issue.

CURRENT AFFAIRS
15 May 2021

NATIONAL NEWS:

 

A) Petition in Supreme Court asks for vaccine clinical trial data to be made public.

A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court to make public the segregated data of clinical trials of Covid-19 vaccines administered under the Emergency Use Authorisation granted by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI). Former member of National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation Dr. Jacob Puliyel, represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan, asked the court to direct the government, its bodies and the vaccine manufacturers – the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech to transparently reveal clinical trial and vaccination data, including the recording and reporting of adverse events. Further, the petition urged the court to direct the government to not issue any coercive mandates for use of these inadequately tested vaccines. Bhushan argued that courts should reiterate that vaccine mandates are repugnant to the right of humans to autonomy and right to self-determine what may be injected into their bodies. The respondents (Centre, its agencies like DCGI and ICMR and vaccine manufacturers) have maintained opacity about the clinical trial data of the two vaccines administered through emergency authorisation in India. Non-disclosure of this important data violates the basic ethics of clinical research that requires results of clinical research studies to be published and brought to the knowledge of the medical community, participants to the research, and the general population, the petition said. Dr. Puliyel, also represented by advocate Cheryl d’Souza, said the lack of transparency raised concerns over the efficacy and safety of the two vaccines. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released a strong statement advocating for public disclosure of all clinical trial results. According to the statement, when data is not released it means that doctors, patients and medical regulators cannot make informed decisions about which treatments are best, the petition stated. The petition said transparency in publishing clinical trial data by the Central Drugs Standard Controls Organisation (CDSCO) that granted final approval for the vaccines by various manufactures to enter the immunisation chain flowed from Section 4 of the Right to Information Act, 2005, which required the government to make proactive disclosures of its records through the internet and other means of communications to the general public.

B) Vice President, Lok Sabha Speaker say no to virtual meetings of Parliamentary panels.

The parliamentary panels cannot meet virtually till the necessary rules are amended by both Houses of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha secretariat said in reply to a letter written by Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday. The standing committees of Parliament, which are non-partisan platforms to analyse the functioning of the government, have not met even once since the onset of the second wave of the pandemic. More than a year after the demands were first raised by the panels’ chairpersons, the necessary changes in the rules have not been amended since their physical meetings were held for a few months when it was believed that Covid-19 was on the wane. Last week, in a letter to Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu, Kharge said that Parliament could not be a mute spectator to the suffering of the people. He urged Naidu to allow online meetings of the panels. Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla last year held a series of meetings where it was argued that the confidentiality clause dictated that only physical meetings of the panels can be held, keeping the proceedings and deliberations secret. It was decided that the issue be referred to the committee on Rules in both the Houses. As physical meetings of the committees were being held regularly, following the guidelines strictly, the matter rested there and the situation had not arisen for considering the matter by the Rules Committees in both the Houses, the letter stated. The Rajya Sabha secretariat assured Kharge that the meetings of the committees would be considered shortly once the situation improves for better. It was informed that the issue of confidentiality can be resolved during the session as any amendment to the rules can be approved by the respective Houses only after the matter is considered by the Rules Committee. Senior Congress leader and chairman of the committee on Home Affairs Anand Sharma who, on Tuesday, wrote to Naidu making the same demand, said: In a democracy, accountability can neither be delayed nor evaded. His colleague and chairman of the panel on Science and Technology Jairam Ramesh wrote on Twitter that nowhere in the world had Parliament run away from its duties like in India. In spite of repeated requests for almost a year, virtual meetings of Standing Committees have been inexplicably disallowed. The PM has all his meetings virtually, but 30 odd MPs cannot, he said.

C) Congress slams Centre as Delhi Police question Youth Congress chief over Covid-19 relief work.

The Congress on Friday asked if providing oxygen cylinders and life-saving drugs to Covid-19 patients is a crime under the Narendra Modi government. This follows the questioning of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) chief B V Srinivas by the crime branch of the Delhi Police. Today every person has to decide if providing oxygen, helping people to get life-saving drugs like Remdesivir, arranging beds or providing food to ambulance drivers is a crime. It seems to be a crime according to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala. Today, Modi ji and [Home Minister] Amit Shah Ji sent Delhi Police to the office of the IYC office to question Srinivas ji. Can there be a more despicable act than this? Is it a sin committed by the Youth Congress and the Congress to provide help that the Modi government has been unable to do? he stated. The government should be ashamed of itself, he said. He asserted that the Youth Congress would continue to provide oxygen and other life-saving drugs to needy patients. They [Delhi Police officials] wanted to know the details of how are we helping people. We answered all their questions, Srinivas said. Using hash tag #IStandWithIYC to express solidarity, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi tweeted, The one who saves is always greater than the one who destroys. While former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh tweeted to call the Delhi Police’s move as atrocious, party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too reacted on Twitter when former Rajya Sabha member Shahid Siddiqui said that a police official had also come to his place to find out how Vadra mananged to help him with Remdesivir injections for his wife. If helping someone in need is now a crime, I will commit it again and again. To my mind it’s a far greater crime to silently watch and do nothing while people die desperately searching for medicine and gasping for air, Vadra said, lending her support to the IYC. At an online press conference, All India Congress Committee in charge of Delhi Shaktisinh Gohil said Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief Anil Chaudhary and former MLA Mukesh Sharma also received notice for such questioning. A Delhi Police official claimed that the questioning followed a direction from the Delhi High Court on a writ petition filed by Dr. Deepak Singh about politicians involved in illegal distribution of Covid-19 medicines, etc. 

D) Sputnik V to be priced at ₹995.40 per dose.

Sputnik V has now joined India’s immunisation programme against Covid-19, with the first dose of the Russian vaccine being administered in Hyderabad today. The maximum retail price of the imported vaccine is ₹995.40 per dose. As part of a limited pilot, the soft launch of the vaccine has commenced and the first dose was administered in Hyderabad on May 14, said Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, the marketing partner in India for the vaccine of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF). It follows the imported doses of Sputnik V that arrived in the country on May 1, receiving regulatory clearance from the Central Drugs Laboratory, Kasauli, on May 13. Further consignments of Sputnik V are expected over the upcoming months. Subsequently, supply of the vaccine will commence from Indian manufacturing partners.

E) Many districts in Kerala on rain alert.

District administrations in Kerala have scrambled to deal with a potential rainfall-related emergency, with the turbulent weather conditions over the Arabian Sea expected to trigger torrential rains over the next few days. Five Kerala districts Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Ernakulam were on red alert today (Friday), given the likelihood of extremely heavy rainfall, according to a corrected weather update issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) at 1 p.m. In a 10 a.m. update, the weather agency had downgraded the red alerts that were sounded in three districts on Friday to orange alerts. As per the latest update, Kottayam, Idukki, Thrissur, Palakkad , Malappuram, Kozhikode and Wayanad are on orange alert today (Friday) and Kannur and Kasaragod on yellow alert.

F) Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments.

The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 2,41,00,326 with the death toll at 2,62,951. Lockdown restrictions in Tamil Nadu are set to become more stringent from tomorrow. Provision and grocery stores and shops selling meat would be allowed to function only from 6 am to 10 am across Tamil Nadu from Saturday. Tea shops will be closed. These shops were earlier allowed to remain open from 6 am to 12 noon. E-registration would be made mandatory from May 17 for inter-district and intra-district movement even for essential purposes, weddings or funerals of close relatives and also for travelling for medical treatment and for elderly care, a Government release said on Friday evening. Shops on pavements, which were earlier allowed to sell vegetables, flowers and fruits till 12 noon, would not be allowed any more. In neighbouring Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday extended the state-wide lockdown till May 23. Vijayan said the government is taking steps to mitigate the ill-effects of the lockdown, chiefly loss of livelihood. He announced free food kits for the population and immediate distribution of social welfare pensions. The government would support Anganwadi teachers and Kudumbashree units, he added.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

A) Oli reappointed Nepal PM. 

K.P. Sharma Oli, heading a minority government, was sworn in as Nepal’s Prime Minister on Friday, four days after the embattled leader lost a crucial vote of confidence in Parliament. The 69-year-old Chairman of the Communist Party of MarxistLeninist) was reappointed as Prime Minister by President Bidya Devi Bhandari in his capacity as leader of the largest political party in Nepal’s House of Representatives. Mr. Oli will head a minority government as he does not enjoy a majority in Parliament after losing the vote of confidence on Monday. He was reappointed to the post on Thursday night as the Opposition parties failed to secure majority seats in Parliament. Mr. Oli will now have to take a vote of confidence at the House within 30 days, failing which, an attempt to form a government under Article 76 (5) of the Constitution would be initiated by the President. The Ministers of Mr. Oli’s Cabinet were also sworn in during the ceremony. All the Ministers from the old Cabinet have been included in the new Cabinet. Pradeep Gyawali has been reappointed as Foreign Minister while Ram Bahadur Thapa and Bishnu Poudyal were appointed as Ministers for Home and Finance.

 

B) Kabul mosque bombing kills 12 devotees. 

A bomb ripped through a mosque in northern Kabul during Friday prayers, killing 12 worshippers, and wounding 15, Afghan police. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, the latest in a surge in violence as U.S. and NATO troops have begun their final withdrawal from the country, after 20 years of According to Afghan police spokesman, Ferdaws Faramarz, the bomb exploded as prayers had begun. The mosque’s Imam, Mofti Noman, was among the dead, the spokesman said and ad, ded that the initial police investigation suggests the Imam may have been the target. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied any insurgent connection to the mosque attack, condemning it and accusing Afghanistan’s intelligence agency of being behind the explosion. Both the Taliban and government routinely blame each other for attacks. The attackers are rarely identified, and the public is seldom informed of the results of investigations into the many attacks in the capital. One worshipper, Muhibullah Sahebzada, said he had just stepped into the building when the explosion went off. Stunned, he heard the sound of screams, including those of children. as smoke filled the mosque. The explosion comes on the second day of a three-day ceasefire announced by the Taliban for Id-ul-Fitr, follows the fasting month of Ramzan. The Afghan government has said it would abide by a truce. So far, many of the attacks in Kabul have been claimed by the Islamic State group’s lcxal affiliate, though the Taliban and government routinely trade blame.

CURRENT AFFAIRS
14 May 2021

NATIONAL NEWS:

 

A) Experts point to contradiction in Indias push for IPR waiver on Covid-19 vaccines.

Public health advocates and intellectual property rights experts point to a contradiction in Indias global push for suspension of intellectual property protection with its stand in the Supreme Court that bringing Covid-19 vaccines under a statutory regime will be counter-productive at this stage. India, along with South Africa, had initiated a proposal for the temporary waiver of certain provisions in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to facilitate fair, affordable and universal access to Covid-19 vaccines and medicines, especially for developing countries. The October 2020 communication to the TRIPS Council of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) referred to several reports about intellectual property rights hindering or potentially hindering timely provisioning of affordable medical products to patients. The two countries had highlighted that some WTO Members had carried out urgent legal amendments to their national patent laws to expedite the process of issuing compulsory/government use licences. Internationally, there is an urgent call for global solidarity, and the unhindered global sharing of technology and know-how in order that rapid responses for the handling of COVID-19 can be put in place on a real-time basis, they stressed in October last year. The United States has recently conveyed its support for an intellectual property waiver for Covid-19 vaccines. However, experts point to an affidavit filed by the Centre in the Supreme Court on May 9, 2021, which shows the government taking a different stand in favour of protection of intellectual property rights. Any exercise of statutory powers either under the Patents Act, 1970 read with TRIPS Agreement and Doha Declaration or in any other way can only prove to be counter-productive at this stage, the Centre has said in the affidavit. The government assures that it is very actively engaging itself with global organisations at a diplomatic level to find out a solution in the best possible interest of India.

B) Overseas Citizens of India, stung by Home Ministry notification, plan to take battle to Supreme Court.

The Home Ministrys March 4 order that required professional Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) such as journalists, engineers and researchers to notify the Ministry about their activities in India has left them in the lurch. A portal that was to come up for the purpose is not operational yet. A Ministry official said it was delayed as several officials in the Ministrys foreigners division tested positive for Covid-19 in the past month. A director rank official, A. Radharani, succumbed to the virus last week. The official said the OCIs could intimate the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) through e-mail till the portal is activated. Rajanna Sreedhara, president of Association of Resident OCI and Families (AROCIF), said that they were planning to challenge the Ministrys notification in the Supreme Court as they believed it was discriminatory. On March 4, the Ministry issued a gazette notification that OCI cardholders could claim only NRI (Non-Resident Indian) quota seats in educational institutions. It specified that OCIs could only pursue the following professions doctors, dentists, nurses and pharmacists, advocates, architects and chartered accountants, the rest would require special permission. OCIs are of Indian origin but hold foreign passports. India does not allow dual citizenship but provides certain benefits under Section 7B(I) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 to the OCIs. So far, 37.72 lakh OCI Cards are said to have been issued. The notification said that OCIs shall be required to obtain a special permission or a special permit from the competent authority or the FRRO or the Indian mission to undertake research, missionary or Tabligh or mountaineering or journalistic activities or internship in any foreign diplomatic missions. The notification does not mention IT professionals, a large number of OCIs are engineers; so will they have to apply for employment visa? It says permission required to conduct research…this will place undue burden on scientific, pharmaceutical, medical, biotechnology and other research fields, Sreedhara said.

C) Doctors in rural Unnao resign en masse, alleging harassment by administration over Covid-19 work.

More than a dozen doctors posted in rural hospitals in the Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh collectively resigned, alleging harassment and misbehaviour by administrative officials. Sixteen doctors, posted at community health centres and primary health centres submitted their resignation letters to the chief medical officer (CMO) of the district on Wednesday. Speaking to the media, one of them said that while their teams would work on the field from noon to 4-5 p.m., isolating Covid-19 positive cases in their home, distributing medicine and carrying out sampling, the local SDM would summon them after that seeking a report of their work. The doctors would have to drive back several km to the tehsil from their place of work just to prove that they are working, said the doctor. Despite continuously working, it has been made to appear like we are not working and that due to this, the Covid-19 situation is going out of control, he said. The doctors also alleged that they were not provided sufficient drug supply from the government and often faced verbal harassment at the hands of the CMO and the CMS. If the field teams were unable to trace down patients because of submission of wrong phone numbers and addresses, they should not be held responsible for it, said the doctors.

D) India resists community transmission tag despite soaring cases.

Despite adding the highest number of cases in the world every day, India continues to label itself as a country with no community transmission (CT), opting instead for the lower, less serious classification called cluster of cases, according to the latest weekly report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on May 11. Countries such as the United States, Brazil, United Kingdom, France and a perusal of the list of over 190 countries suggest the majority have all labelled themselves as being in community transmission. Among the 10 countries with the most number of confirmed cases, only Italy and Russia do not label themselves as being in community transmission. Both countries have been on a declining trajectory for at least a month and together contribute less than 20,000 cases a day  about 5% of Indias daily numbers. India, since the beginning of the pandemic has never marked itself as being in community transition. Broadly, CT is when new cases in the last 14 days cant be traced to those who have an international travel history, when cases cant be linked to specific cluster.

E) Priyanka Gandhi demands judicial probe into bodies in Ganga.

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday said the situation in Uttar Pradesh is inhuman and criminal and demanded a judicial probe headed by a High Court judge into the several instances of bodies found floating in the Ganga in many parts of the State. What is happening in U.P. is inhuman and criminal. The government is busy image-building while people are suffering unimaginably. There must be an immediate judicial enquiry headed by a High Court judge into these events, tweeted Vadra, who is the Congress general secretary in-charge of U.P. The Unnao district authorities meanwhile ordered an inquiry over fresh reports of bodies being found buried on the banks of the Ganga in the Bighapur Patan tehsil area. There were also reports of bodies floating in the river in Ballia and other places of U.P. and Bihar. Bodies are floating in the Ganga in Ballia and Ghazipur. Reports are coming in of mass burials on the banks of the river in Unnao. Official numbers from cities like Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Jhansi and Kanpur appear to be grossly under-reported, the Congress leader said in another tweet.

F) Put FCRA on hold to ease relief flow, Nasscom plea to PM.

India’s IT industry body Nasscom has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to grant emergency use authorisation for all WHO-approved vaccines in view of domestic vaccine shortages, and temporarily relax stringent Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) norms to ease the flow of overseas COVID-19 relief into the country. Newscom’s missive to the PM listed three critical asks to enable industry to act faster to help the country navigate the second wave. Many countries and global companies are providing aid to India and are helping the healthcare infrastructure deal with the surge. However, the amended provisions of the FCRA Act 2020 are proving to be a deterrent, the letter to the PM said. On May 3, the government permitted imports without GST levies for pandemic relief material donated from abroad for free distribution in the country, delegating States to certify the entities that will receive such imports. However, no exemption has been granted from the FCRA norms that require domestic entities receiving foreign aid to get an approval from the Ministry of Home Affairs. Given the humanitarian crisis, we would request the government to grant a temporary waiver to the FCRA Act and the 2020 amendments. This will enable NGOs to transfer funds between FCRA-approved NGOs and non-FCRA approved NGOs, it said. The amendments flagged by Nasscom prohibit entities receiving foreign contributions from transferring those to any other person, so even entities registered under the FCRA for providing healthcare support, are unable to pass on the relief material to patients or smaller NGOs.

G) PM Modi is missing along with vaccines and oxygen, tweets Rahul Gandhi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also missing along with vaccine, oxygen and medicines, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday. In a tweet, Gandhi said, Prime Minister is also missing along with vaccine, oxygen and medicines. Among the things that remains include the Central Vista, goods and services tax (GST) on medicines, and photographs of the Prime Minister here and there, the Congress leader tweeted. Several Congress leaders also countered the government on vaccine shortage after Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had blamed Congress leaders for raising doubts about Bharat Biotechs Covaxin being given approval without the phase three clinical trial data. Where is the Vaccine ? NDA/BJP Ministers are desperately trying to deflect attention from their Criminal mishandling of Pandemic by Goebbelinaly (sic) blaming opposition for fuelling vaccine hesitancy. FOCUS ON DOING SOME WORK FOR A CHANGE, Lok Sabha member Manish Tewari tweeted by tagging a news report about 100 vaccination centres in Delhi closing down owing to a vaccine shortage. His colleague, Shashi Tharoor, who was specifically named by Puri in a tweet, asked if the vaccine shortage in the country was because of his tweet. Let me keep it simple: 1. Is the vaccine shortage because of Congress tweets? 2. Did GOI fail to order enough vaccines because of my tweets? 3. Is differential pricing in May the result of my pointing out on Jan 3 that that Phase 3 trials of Covaxin were not complete @HardeepSPuri, asked Tharoor.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

A) Riyadh frees Bin Laden patriarch. 

Saudi Arabia has released construction magnate Bakr bin Laden, more than three years after his detention in a purge of the kingdoms elite that upended his vast business empire, sources told AFP. The former chairman of the Bin Laden Group, Saudi biggest construction company, was reunited last week with his family in the Red Sea city of Jeddah after being freed from an undisclosed detention site, two people close to his family said. Mr. Bakr, 70, a half-brother of the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was not reachable for Mr. Bakr and two other siblings, Saad and Saleh, were snared in a November 2017 purge that saw hundreds of royals, tycoons and Ministers locked up for months in Riyadhs Ritz-Carlton hotel, then widely dubbed a fivestar prison. The unprecedented crackdown, which rattled private investors just as the kingdom sought to lure capital to help diversify the economy, was described by the government as an anti-corruption measure.

B) Mohamed Nasheed flown to Germany for treatment.

Maldivian leader Mohamed Nasheed was on Thursday flown to Germany for treatment, a week after surviving an assassination attempt in capital Male that left him critically injured. Following the May 6 terror attack, as Maldives police described the bomb explosion, doctors in a Male hospital performed complex surgeries on the Parliamentary Speaker and former President, to remove shrapnel from his liver, lungs and abdomen. He was discharged from hospital on Thursday, and medically evacuated to Germany with high security, local media reported. In the first tweet from his account since the explosion, Mr. Nasheed said in the local Dhivehi language: A special thanks to the health sector of the Maldives. By the grace of Allah, I will stay the course to deliver good governance that you all seek. Eid Mubarak to everyone! Linking the blast to religious extremists, the police arrested three persons allegedly involved in the deliberate act of terror. The Maldivess Parliamentary Committee on National Security Services is probing the security breach that led to the attack on the former President. In a statement condemning the attempted assassination, South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a regional network of human rights defenders, said the incident evoked popular unresolved murders and disappearances in past linked to extremist groups, such as the murder of blogger Yameen Rasheed in 2017, and MP Afrasheem Ali in 2012, and the 2014 disappearance [subsequently declared murder] of journalist Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla. The network urged President Ibrahim Mohamed Solihs government to probe the incidents and bring perpetrators to justice. Ahmed Shaheed, United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, who formerly served as Foreign Minister of the Maldives, said it is important to carefully conceptualise the May 6 attack.

CURRENT AFFAIRS
13 May 2021

NATIONAL NEWS:

A) Opposition parties urge Modi to start free, universal vaccination.

In a joint letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, 12 Opposition parties have urged the government to immediately begin a free, universal mass vaccination campaign across the country as the Covid-19 pandemic has assumed unprecedented dimensions of a human catastrophe. This is the second joint letter by the opposition parties in less than ten days to the government. In an earlier letter on May 3, the parties had asked the government to ensure uninterrupted supply of medical oxygen and free vaccinations. The signatories of the letter include Chief Ministers Mamata Banerjee, M K Stalin, Uddhav Thackeray and Hemant Soren. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, JD(S) leader H D Deve Gowda, NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, National Conference leader Dr. Farooq Abdullah, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, CPI general secretary D Raja and CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury are the other signatories. The parties complained that all their previous attempts to draw the government’s attention, both independently and jointly, had come to naught. Without going into all the acts of commission and omission by the Central government that have brought the country to such a tragic pass, we are of the firm opinion that the following measures must be undertaken on a war footing by your government, they said. The government should procure vaccines centrally from all available sources global and domestic. Immediately begin a free, universal mass vaccination campaign across the country. Invoke compulsory licensing to expand domestic vaccine production, they noted. The budgetary allocation of Rs 35,000 crore for vaccines should be immediately spent, the parties said. As of now, only close to Rs. 5,000 crore had been spent.

B) Covid-19 catastrophe was preventable, says independent panel of experts. 

The catastrophic scale of the Covid-19 pandemic could have been prevented but a toxic cocktail of dithering and poor coordination meant the warning signs went unheeded, independent global panel concluded on Wednesday. The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) said a series of bad decisions has allowed Covid-19 to kill at least 3.3 million people so far and devastate the global economy. Institutions failed to protect people and science-denying leaders eroded public trust in health interventions, the IPPPR said in its long-awaited final report. Early responses to the outbreak detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019 lacked urgency, with February 2020 a costly lost month as countries failed to heed the alarm, said the panel. To tackle the current pandemic, it called on the richest countries to donate a billion vaccine doses to the poorest. And the panel also called on the world’s wealthiest nations to fund new organisations dedicated to preparing for the next pandemic. The report was requested by World Health Organization (WHO) member states last May. The panel was jointly chaired by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a 2011 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. The report, ‘Covid-19: Make it the Last Pandemic’, argued that the global alarm system needed overhauling to prevent a similar catastrophe. Poor strategic choices, unwillingness to tackle inequalities and an uncoordinated system created a toxic cocktail which allowed the pandemic to turn into a catastrophic human crisis, the report said. The threat of a pandemic had been overlooked and countries were woefully unprepared to deal with one, the report found. The panel did not spare the WHO, saying it could have declared the situation a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) its highest level of alarm on January 22, 2020. Instead, it waited eight more days before doing so. The panel also proposed an overhaul of the WHO to give it greater control over its funding and more authority for its leadership.

C) Health Ministry claims WHO doesn’t mention any ‘Indian variant’ though it does, using the scientific name.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has not associated the term ‘Indian Variant’ with the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus in its 32-page document, according to the Health Ministry. In fact, the word ‘Indian’ has not been used in its report on the matter, noted a release issued by the Ministry on Wednesday. It added that some reports had covered the news of classifying B.1.617 as a variant of global concern and termed the B.1.617 strain of the coronavirus as an Indian Variant. This release, however, seems to be willfully mixing up two different issues: it is certainly inappropriate to link the nomenclature of any variant with a particular nation, and it has been pointed out by many that it is not right to speak of the ‘Wuhan virus’ or the ‘U.K. variant’, etc. But that doesn’t mean that B.1.617 did not originate in India, or that it is not most widely prevalent in India, or that it is not a ‘Variant of Concern’. The Indian variant, B.1.617 and its family of related coronaviruses have been categorised as a Variant of Concern (VOC) by WHO, a classification which will now prompt greater international scrutiny of those who test positive overseas. 

D) Ivermectin still being used in India despite WHO recommendation against it.

Though it continues to be listed in India as a possible treatment option for mild Covid-19 patients under home isolation, Ivermectin, according to the World Health Organisation’s recent direction, is not recommended for general use. This orally-administered drug is included in India’s revised national Covid-19 treatment protocol for people with mild infection even though its maker has now clarified that there is no evidence of its efficacy against the viral disease. Safety and efficacy are important when using any drug for a new indication. WHO recommends against use of ‘Ivermectin’ for COVID-19 except within clinical trials, Soumya Swaminathan, WHO’s chief scientist, tweeted earlier this week. Indian physicians who continue to use this drug state that it is an approved anti-parasitic agent. It has shown, in laboratory settings, to inhibit SARS-COV2 replication. It may be effective for the management of early onset, mild Covid-19 for adult patients. In a clinical setting, it is observed that there is an early viral clearance in patients who are put on Ivermectin. There are no severe adverse effects noted in patients with non-severe Covid-19, said Vighnesh Naidu Y, consultant physician, Yashoda Hospitals, Hyderabad.

E) Justice Chandrachud tests positive for Covid-19.

Supreme Court judge Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, who was leading the Bench hearing cases on Covid-19 management, has tested positive for the virus. A crucial hearing on the COVID issue is listed before a three-judge Bench of Justices Chandrachud, L. Nageswara Rao and S. Ravindra Bhat for hearing on Thursday. Justice Chandrachud’s Bench had in the previous hearing constituted a National Task Force to scientifically study and recommend a foolproof mechanism for allocation of oxygen to States. Justice Chandrachud had made it clear to the Centre that the Supreme Court would not remain a mute spectator to a national calamity. The Covid-19 cases, which were initially being heard by a Bench led by former CJI Justice S.A. Bobde, was shifted to a Bench led by Justice Chandrachud following Justice Bobde’s retirement.

F) Gautam Navlakha denied bail again.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused bail to activist Gautam Navlakha in the Bhima Koregaon violence case. A Bench led by Justice U.U. Lalit had reserved the case for judgment on March 26. The case was listed on Wednesday. Justice K.M. Joseph pronounced the verdict, saying Navlakha’s period of house arrest cannot be counted as custody and, hence, he was not eligible for statutory bail. The Bench had heard arguments raised by senior advocate Kapil Sibal and advocates Nitya Ramakrishnan and Shadan Farasat for grant of default bail to Navlakha under Section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure read with Section 43(D)(2) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. Navlakha challenged the dismissal of his bail plea by the Bombay High Court on February 8. The High Court had upheld the NIA court verdict denying him bail despite the petitioner spending more than 90 days in custody.

G) Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments.

The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 2,35,63,982 with the death toll at 2,56,607. The head of the main Indian health agency responding to the coronavirus has said districts reporting a high number of infections should remain locked down for another six to eight weeks to control the spread of the rampaging disease. Balram Bhargava, head of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said in an interview that lockdown restrictions should remain in place in all districts where the rate of infection is above 10% of those tested. Currently, three-fourths of India’s 718 districts have what is known as a test-positivity rate above 10%, including major cities like New Delhi, Mumbai and the tech hub of Bengaluru. Dr. Bhargava’s comments are the first time a senior government official has outlined how long lockdowns, which already encompass large parts of country, need to continue to rein in the crisis in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has shied away from imposing a nationwide lockdown because of the economic impact and has left it to State governments. The high positivity districts should remain (shut). If they come to 5% from 10% (positivity rate), we can open them, but that has to happen. That won’t happen in six-eight weeks, clearly, Dr. Bhargava said in an interview at the New Delhi headquarters of the ICMR, the country’s top medical research body. Referring to the capital, one of India’s hardest hit cities, where the positivity rate reached around 35% but has now fallen to about 17%, Dr. Bhargava said: If Delhi is opened tomorrow, it will be a disaster.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

A) Taliban seizes district on outskirts of Kabul. 

The Taliban has seized a district from the Afghan government forces on the outskirts of Kabul, ahead of a three day ceasefire agreed between the warring sides, officials said. Nerkh district is around 40 kilometres from the Afghan capital in the neighbouring Wardak province, which has long been used by militants as a gateway to reach Kabul. Violence has soared since May 1 when the U.S. military began formally withdrawing its last remaining troops, as peace efforts between the Taliban and the Afghan government have stalled. Security and defence forces made a tactical retreat from the police headquarters of Nerkh district, Interior Ministry spokesman Tareq Arian said. Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said the insurgents captured the area on Tuesday, adding that fighters seized the police headquarters and an army base. The Defence Ministry on Wednesday said it would launch an offensive to win back the district, home to more than 60,000 people. Commando reinforcements are on their way, said Fawad Aman, a spokesman for the Defence Ministry. Large swathes of Wardak and neighbouring Logar province have been controlled or contested years the Talban fighters. The main highway that connects Kabul to southern Kandahar province the former Taliban stronghold and the scene of intense fighting in recent weeks through the district. Taliban fighters have been enriching major urban centres, spurring speculation that the militants are waiting for the U.S. to withdraw before launching all other assaults cities.

B) India opened up too early, says U.S. President’s top medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci.

India made the incorrect assumption that it was finished with the Covid-19 pandemic and opened up prematurely, and that’s what has left the country in such dire straits, America’s top infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told Senators. India has been severely affected by the unprecedented second wave of the coronavirus and hospitals in several States are reeling under the shortage of health workers, vaccines, oxygen, drugs and beds. The reason that India is in such dire straits now is that they had an original surge and made the incorrect assumption that they were finished with it, and what happened, they opened up prematurely and wound up having a surge right now that we’re all very well aware of is extremely devastating, Dr. Fauci told the Senate Health, Education, Labour and Pensions Committee during a hearing on Tuesday on the Covid-19 response. Dr. Fauci, who is the Director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is also the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden. Chairing the hearing, Senator Patty Murray said that the surge of Covid-19 that is devastating India is a painful reminder really that the U.S. can’t end the pandemic here until it ends it everywhere. India’s outbreak underscores the need for a robust public health infrastructure in the U.S. to respond appropriately to this pandemic and future outbreaks as well, Senator Murray said as she asked Dr. Fauci what can the U.S. learn from India’s outbreak.

CURRENT AFFAIRS
12 May 2021

NATIONAL NEWS:

 

A) 26 Covid-19 patients die in Goa hospital in a span of few hours.

Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on May 11 said 26 Covid-19 patients died at the State-run Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in the early hours and sought an investigation by the High Court to find out the exact cause. He said these fatalities occurred between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. which is a fact, but remained evasive about the cause. Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who visited GMCH, said the gap between the availability of medical oxygen and its supply to Covid-19 wards in the GMCH might have caused some issues for the patients even as he stressed that there is no scarcity of oxygen supply in the State. Speaking to reporters, Rane admitted the shortfall in the supply of medical oxygen at the GMCH as of May 10. The High Court should investigate the reasons behind these deaths. The HC should also intervene and prepare a white paper on oxygen supply to the GMCH, which would help to set the things right, the Health Minister said after the CM’s visit to GMCH. Rane said the medical oxygen requirement of the facility as of May 10 was 1,200 jumbo cylinders of which only 400 were supplied. If there’s a shortfall in the supply of medical oxygen, the discussion should be held about how to bridge that gap, he said.

B) PIL against Central Vista construction another attempt to stall project: Centre to HC.

The Centre has told the Delhi High Court that the PIL seeking stay on the construction of Central Vista in New Delhi amid the raging Covid-19 pandemic was just another attempt to stall the project, which has been facing such attempts from the beginning on one pretext or another. The intentions and motive behind filing of the plea are evident from the fact that the instant project has been singled out by the petitioners despite several other agencies, including Delhi Metro, carrying out construction activities across the national capital, the Centre has alleged. The very fact that out of all these construction activities going on simultaneously for different projects by different agencies, the petitioner has chosen to be a public spirited citizen only with regard to one project only speaks volumes about his intentions and motive behind filing the present petition, the Centre’s affidavit has contended. Since the affidavit was not yet on record, a Bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh listed the matter for hearing on May 12. The court also allowed the early hearing application moved by the petitioners Anya Malhotra, who works as a translator, and Sohail Hashmi, a historian and documentary film maker — who have contended that the project was not an essential activity and therefore, it can be put on hold for now during the pandemic. In the affidavit filed in the court on May 10, the Central government has said that the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) has permitted construction activities, during the prevailing curfew, where the labourers are residing on-site.

C) BJP focused on efforts to protect Brand Modi, set to launch campaign to promote ‘positivity’

The second wave of the pandemic has left even the well connected high and dry when it comes to accessing health care resources, a fact illuminated by the death of four BJP MLAs in Uttar Pradesh alone, as well as a a letter from Union Minister Santosh Gangwar to U.P. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The letter talks about the lack of resources in his constituency of Bareilly, and the helplessness being expressed even within BJP circles in terms of dealing with public distress. The effect of all this not just in terms of what it means for the progress of the pandemic through the country but also for the reputation of Brand Modi seems to be very much on the minds of BJP leaders, according to sources in the party. On Tuesday, party president J. P. Nadda wrote a four-page rebuttal to Congress working president Sonia Gandhi’s speech at the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meet held the previous day. In this, Nadda accused her and her party of being duplicitous and petty and creating a false panic in the fight against Covid-19. The tone of the letter was to emphasise that the Opposition and the Chief Ministers of the Opposition-ruled States have steadily opposed prescriptions to control the pandemic and blamed Modi as it went out of hand. BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya bemoaned the fact that while fatalities were being talked about, recovery rates were not being highlighted in quite the same way. The RSS, the ideological mothership of the BJP, also announced, via its COVID Response Team (CRT) the launch of a campaign entitled Hum Jeetenge (Theywill win), also called Positivity Unlimited to counter ‘negativity’ around the fight against Covid-19.

D) Bodies of 71 suspected Covid-19 victims recovered from Ganga.

Bodies of 71 suspected Covid-19 victims, which were found floating in the Ganga at Chausa in Buxar district of Bihar on Monday, were retrieved and some of them were disposed of by the district administration by Tuesday morning. Samples of some bodies have been preserved for further tests. They retrieved 71 bodies. Some of them have been disposed of, while the process for others is underway. Samples of some bodies too have been preserved for further tests, Buxar Superintendent of Police Neeraj Kumar Singh told The Hindu over phone. Post-mortem of bodies was done at the ghat itself as they were highly decomposed, he added. Ram Ashray Yadav who sells pyre wood for funeral at the Mahadeo ghat (bank) at Chausa, said, Most of the bodies were buried in a large pit dug by a JCB machine on the bank of the river. The district officials had said the bodies might have floated in from adjoining districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh such as Varanasi and Allahabad. The bodies are bloated. They seem to have been in the water for at least 5-7 days. Their origin needs to be investigated. They could be from Varanasi or Allahabad of U.P., a senior official of the district said. Videos of bloated bodies had also gone viral on social media, sparking an outrage and shock among villagers. Chausa is about 10 km downstream from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

E) Array of measures can be used to make vaccines and other supplies cheaper.

An array of measures, including reduction in GST rates, zero GST rate on critical raw materials, permitting GST-free imports, as well as direct cash incentives to producers, can be used by the Centre to make Covid-19 vaccines and other critical supplies cheaper, tax experts have suggested. At present, GST oods and Services Tax is levied at the rate of 5% on vaccines and 12% on Covid-19 drugs and oxygen concentrators for domestic supplies and commercial imports. For oxygen concentrators imported for personal use, the government has reduced GST rate from 28% to 12% and waived customs duties. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday launched a staunch defence of the GST levies on Covid-19 relief supplies after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi mooting an exemption from these taxes amid the pandemic’s escalating second wave. The Finance Minister had said that exemption of vaccines from GST would be counterproductive without benefiting the consumer. If the government is exploring free vaccination to all the citizens, then the consumer of such vaccine will be the government. Thus, no matter at what rate it is taxed, it may not directly impact the pocket of common man. It would be more of a revenue-sharing issue between the Centre and States, said Siddharth Surana, adviser (strategy and business transformation) at tax consultancy RSM India. Under the present policy, the Centre is providing free vaccines to those above 45 years, while States and individuals have been asked to foot the bill for the rest. Tax implications matter not just for vaccines, but also other critical drugs and equipment. A taxation expert, on condition of anonymity, said reducing the GST on final products as well as raw materials, or zero-rating supplies, would be a better option than an outright GST exemption. Saket Patawari, executive director (indirect tax) at advisory firm Nexdigm, said the government could also take measures to slash costs, including a possible special incentive scheme to refund taxes, outside the ambit of the GST law.

F) Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments.

The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 2,31,92,346 with the official death toll at 2,52,251. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday that the B.1.617 variant first identified in India last year was being classified as a variant of global concern. They classify it as a variant of concern at a global level, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead on COVID-19, told a briefing. There is some available information to suggest increased transmissibility. Such a classification is made only when the variant is either more infectious or more lethal than the original strain. Meanwhile, an early trend of decline in daily new Covid-19 cases and deaths has been noted in the country, the government said on May 11, indicating that the devastating second wave of the pandemic is on the wane. According to the government, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Chhattisgarh were among 18 States and Union Territories showing continued plateauing or decrease in daily new Covid-19 cases. Addressing a press conference, a senior official, however, said Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Punjab were among 16 States and Union Territories showing continued increasing trend in daily new cases. Thirteen States have more than 1 lakh active cases each and 26 States have a positivity rate of over 15%, the government said.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

A) EU is suing AstraZeneca to get 90 million doses before July. 

The European Union is suing British Swedish pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca to force it to deliver 90 million more doses of its COVID-19 vaccine before July, a spokesman said on Tuesday. They want the court to order the company to deliver 90 million additional doses, in addition to the 30 million already delivered in the first quarter, European Commission spokesman Stefan De Keersmaecker told a media conference. The Commission has launched two emergency legal actions against the company in a Belgian court, first to have the urgency of the issue recognised, and then to have a judge rule on whether the EU’s case is well-founded. After citing production problems in its EU manufacture, and refusing to divert doses from British factories listed as suppliers in the EU contract, the company offered revised deliveries.

B) School shooting in Russia kills 9 people; suspect arrested.

A gunman attacked a school Tuesday morning in the Russian city of Kazan, sending students running out of the building as smoke poured from its windows. At least nine people were killed seven eighth-grade students, a teacher and another school worker and 21 others were hospitalised, Russian officials said. Footage released by Russian media outlets showed students dressed in black and white running out of the building. Another video depicted shattered windows, billowing smoke, and sounds resembling gunshots in the background. Dozens of ambulances lined up at the school’s entrance after the attack and police fenced off access to the building. Russian media said while some students were able to escape, others were trapped inside during the ordeal. All students were eventually evacuated to nearby day care centers and collected by their families. Officials said the attacker has been arrested and police opened a criminal investigation into the shooting. Authorities immediately put additional security measures into place in all schools in Kazan, a city 700 kilometers (430 miles) east of Moscow.

CURRENT AFFAIRS
11 May 2021

NATIONAL NEWS:

 

A) Covid-19 vaccination drive is ‘different’ and ‘biggest’, claims govt in SC.

The Covid-19 vaccination drive is the biggest ever and completely different from the immunisation drives of the previous decades, the Union government said on Monday, responding to criticism that its inoculation push is crumbling. The government said that unlike the vaccination campaigns of the past, the Covid-19 immunisation drive did not have the luxury of time. In previous vaccination drives, there was time to manufacture and distribute vaccines. But Covid-19 has crash-landed on humanity. The current need for vaccination was both emergent and urgent, it said. Critics and experts, however, have said the government has many lessons to learn from the polio immunisation drive conducted decades ago. Covid 19 vaccination drive in progress in the capital on Monday. This drive to vaccinate each and every adult person in the country is completely different from other vaccinations conducted by the country in the past in more than one way. The vaccines [for Covid-19] are developed very recently throughout the world and therefore, their production has also started very recently. Another peculiar feature of this vaccination is that the vaccine requires two doses, separated by four to eight weeks, the government reasoned in a 218-page affidavit filed in the Supreme Court. The government added that vaccine production was expected to increase in the next couple of months. It said Serum Institute of India has ramped up production from five crore doses per month to 6.5 crore doses monthly. A further increase was expected in July 2021. Similarly, Bharat Biotech has hiked production from 90 lakh per month to two crore doses a month. An increase of up to 5.5 crore doses per month is expected by July 2021, it said. A three-judge Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud could not hear arguments on the affidavit due to technical glitches during the virtual hearing. The hearing has been adjourned to Thursday. In the affidavit, the Centre assured an equitable allocation of vaccines to States. It said it had determined, in consultation with the vaccine manufacturers, the State-wise pro rata population of those within the target age of 18 and 44.

B) Videos show bodies of suspected Covid-19 victims floating in Ganga.

Videos of several bodies of suspected Covid-19 victims seen floating in the Ganga at Chausa village of Buxar district in Bihar have gone viral on social media, sparking outrage and shock. Chausa is about 10 kms from the headquarters of the border district of Buxar, adjoining eastern Uttar Pradesh. The villagers first spotted several bodies floating along the bank of the river on Monday morning and informed local authorities. Nearly 30-40 dead bodies can be seen in the Ganga and there are stray dogs roaming around. Yes, most of them are likely to be those of Covid-19 victims, social activist and local lawyer Ashwini Varma told The Hindu. According to Varma, the exorbitant cost of cremation could have forced the poor to jettison bodies in the river. It nearly costs ₹30,000-40,000 to cremate a body. So the poor people prefer to push bodies into the river Ganga, he said. Stray dogs are devouring the dead bodies, which could well be of Covid-19 victims. It will spread the virus as well, he added. Local officials at the site admit unofficially that most the bodies could be of infected persons. We’re on the spot right now and nothing can be said till an inquiry is held but yes, the bodies are there, floating in the river, said a local official. The villagers of Chausa have demanded the deployment of an official at the cremation grounds to control the price of firewood so that people are not forced to throw the dead into the river.

C) Second wave of Covid-19 a direct consequence of government’s incompetence: CWC resolution.

The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is nothing short of a grave calamity and a direct consequence of the Narendra Modi government’s indifference, insensitivity and incompetence, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) said in a resolution on Monday. The CWC, that met virtually to discuss the party’s performance in the recent Assembly polls, spent considerable time discussing the coronavirus situation. In her opening remarks, party president Sonia Gandhi said the country had paid a ‘horrendous price’ for the Modi government’s neglect and the health system had collapsed. The CWC expressed concern over the government’s vaccination strategy, insufficient supplies, ‘opaque and discriminatory’ pricing policy and mandatory online registration that would exclude people in rural areas and from poor economic background from walk-in for vaccination. It pointed out that the infection had travelled massively into rural areas that had no access to RT PCR testing, medicines, oxygen or hospitalisation and it had resulted in a large number of painful deaths. The party also charged the Prime Minister with instructing his Health Minister to reply to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s suggestion in a ‘most undignified manner’. The CWC expresses its revulsion at the shocking expenditure priorities of the Modi government. At a time when the nation’s resources should be devoted to ensuring expansion of vaccination coverage and supply of essential medicines and oxygen, the Modi government is indulging in criminal waste of money by continuing with the personal vanity project of the Prime Minister in the national capital. This is the height of callousness and insensitivity as also an insult to the people of the country, it noted. The data on Covid-19 deaths was horribly wrong and afflicted by massive non-reporting, it stated. The solution lies in facing the challenge and stopping the casualties from Covid-19 and not in concealing the truth by burying the data on deaths and infections, it observed.

D) New Assam CM wants 10-20% re-verification of NRC.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said the BJP-led government wants 10-20% re-verification of the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Soon after being sworn in as the State’s 15th Chief Minister, he said that his coalition government favoured 20% re-verification of the updated list of citizens in districts that share a border with Bangladesh and 10% in the remaining districts. They will go ahead with the NRC if the draft (published in August 2019) is found to be flawless during the re-verification process. But they want the Supreme Court to look into it if anomalies are detected, he said. The apex court had monitored the exercise of updating the NRC of 1951 in Assam. About 19.06 lakh out of 3.3 crore applicants were excluded from the updated draft. Earlier in the day, Governor Jagdish Mukhi administered the oath of office and secretary to Dr Sarma and 13 others who were also sworn in as Cabinet Ministers.

E) Govt says all steps on for supply of Remdesivir and Tocilizumab.

The Union government informed the Supreme Court that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) have jointly undertaken the allocation of available supplies of Covid-19 drugs Remdesivir and Tocilizumab across the States and Union Territories in view of a surge in demand for them. The Centre said the Health Ministry, with the support of the DoP and Ministry of External Affairs, was making all efforts to enhance availability of Remdesivir through ramping up of production and sourcing through imports. However, there were constraints on the availability of raw materials and other essential inputs for Remdesivir. Mere addition of production capacity may not lead to the desired outcomes of enhanced supplies. It is difficult to predict the trend of the pandemic and, therefore, difficult to forecast the demand for Remdesivir with a reasonable degree of certainty. Therefore, it is communicated that the matter of sending the proposal for invocation of the provisions of Section 100 (for government use) of the Patents Act, 1970, is being processed, the government stated. The prices of Remdesivir have gone down by 25% to 50%, it noted. A total of 34.50 lakh vials were allocated for the period April 21 to May 9, against which 33.96 lakh vials were supplied till May 7, it noted. In the case of Tocilizumab, as the country was entirely dependent on imports, out of the limited stock of vials imported on April 26, 3,245 were allocated to States the next day and an additional allocation of 6,655 vials was done on April 30 to States. Another 1,200 vials have been kept for Central allocation by the Health Ministry, it pointed out. It is stated that about 6,478 vials have been supplied till May 7. Efforts are underway to procure, import more Tocilizumab, it assured. The DCGI (Drugs Controller General of India) has instructed State Drugs Controllers (SDCs) to conduct a special investigation drive to prevent hoarding/black marketing of Remdesivir.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

A) Pakistan government to set new rules to meet FATF requirements.

Pakistan, keen to exit from the grey list of the FATF, is set to introduce new rules relating to anti-money laundering cases and change the prosecution process to meet its remaining tough conditions, a media report said on Monday. Pakistan was put on the grey list by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global watchdog for money laundering and terror financing in June 2018 and the country has been struggling to come out of it. The Dawn newspaper reported that the changes being made also include the transfer of investigations and prosecution of anti-money laundering (AML) cases from police, provincial anticorruption establishments (ACEs) and other similar agencies to specialised agencies. This is part of two sets of rules, including the AML (Forfeited Properties Management) Rules 2021 and the AML (Referral) Rules 2021 under the National Policy Statement on Follow the Money approved by the federal Cabinet meeting a few days ago, the report said. These rules and related notifications for certain changes in the existing schedule of Anti-Money Laundering Act 2010 (AMLA) would come into force immediately, to be followed by the appointment of administrators and special public prosecutors for implementation. Based on these measures, the FATF would conclude if Pakistan has complied with three outstanding benchmarks, out of 27, that blocked its exit from the grey list in February this year.

B) Nepal PM loses vote of confidence.

Nepal’s Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli lost a confidence vote on Monday, triggering fresh political uncertainty just as the Himalayan nation reels from the pandemic. Mr. Oli, 69, decided to seek a vote of confidence following months of feuding within his ruling communist party and coalition partners. If you want a stable Parliament you should vote for the continuity of this government, he said in his address to the legislature before the vote. New candidate But the former political prisoner was able to secure on. Nepal has been roiled by months of turmoil after Mr. Oli dissolved Parliament in December, accusing members of his Nepal Communist Party (NCP) of being uncooperative. The NCP was formed in 2018 by a merger between Mr. Oli’s Communist Party CPN UML and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) of former rebel leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Two months later, the Supreme Court reinstated Parliament. Another ruling broke the merger and split the ruling party into two. Mr. Oli has faced fierce criticism over his handling of the pandemic as the second wave sweeps over the country, with half of people tested now returning positive.