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Eco/Invest/Demography

AstraZeneca resumes U.S. COVID-19 vaccine trial and next week J&J prepares to do same

AstraZeneca said that it is not unusual for some trial participants to fall ill during large scale vaccine trials but that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has reviewed all safety data from the trials globally and deemed it safe to continue testing the vaccine.

AstraZeneca trials in the United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa resumed last month even as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration continued its investigation into the case.

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NGT slams Centre over inadequate measures to prevent wastage of groundwater

“Overriding environmental law principle of ‘Polluter Pays’ must be invoked by all the regulators to ensure that wastage of water is not profitable and cost of such wastage is recovered which is necessary for restoration of the environment without merely limiting to statutory changes which are no substitute to ‘Polluter Pays’ principle,” the bench said.

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COVID-19: India records 54,366 new infections, 690 deaths

A total of 69,48,497 people have recuperated from the disease so far pushing the national recovery rate to 89.53 per cent while the case fatality rate due to COVID-19 was recorded at 1.51 per cent.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a cumulative total of 10,01,13,085 samples have been tested up to October 22 with 14,42,722 samples being tested on Thursday.

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Next 3 months decisive in determining Covid situation: Harsh Vardhan

Addressing a review meeting with officials of the Uttar Pradesh government, Vardhan said, “Appropriate measures are being taken to combat COVID-19. But the next three months are going to be decisive in determining the situation of COVID in the country. If we take adequate precaution and follow COVID-appropriate behaviour in the coming festival and winter season, we will be in a better position to fight corona.”

He asserted that the state needs to focus on increasing testing, surveillance, contact tracing, and early diagnosis to keep fatality rate low.

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No foolproof anonymity: Justice Srikrishna on data protection

“What is thought to be anonymous can be de-anonymised tomorrow. Therefore, there is no foolproof anonymity. All that law can say is take it as anonymous, if you do de-anonymity, identify the person, then you will be answerable to the law,” Justice Srikrishna said at a FICCI event.

The draft of the personal data protection bill, approved by the Cabinet in December 2019, proposes a penalty of up to Rs 15 crore and up to three-year jail term for company executives for violating privacy norms.

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Startups, SMEs most vulnerable in India to cyberattacks: Report

The most common forms of cybersecurity challenges faced by startups are negligence by employees and employee mobility, according to the report.

The most common forms of employee negligence which lead to cyberattacks including data breaches are accidental loss of the device containing confidential data, leaving the workstation unprotected or unattended, sharing confidential information such as passwords via paper notes and remote working using an unsecured or public network connection.

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