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Indian News

States begin easing COVID lockdowns as case numbers decline

The national capital territory of Delhi, the seat of India’s federal government, was among those relaxing restrictions and will allow shops to open on alternate days. Shops with even numbers will open on one day while those with odd numbers will open the next day. Private offices will also now be allowed to operate at 50% of normal staffing levels.

In the industrialised western state of Maharashtra, the local government will from June 7 allow malls, movie theatres, restaurants and offices to open regularly in districts where the positivity rate has fallen below 5%.

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FM meets insurers, New India pays Rs 209 crore for settling 419 health workers’ COVID-19 claims

A total of 4.65 lakh claims have been paid amounting to Rs 9,307 crore under PMJJBY. Since the beginning of the pandemic that is April 2020 onwards till date, 1.2 lakh claims have been paid amounting to Rs 2,403 crore, at a disposal rate of 99 per cent.

 She also called for accelerating disbursement of pending claims under PMJJBY during the pandemic. 

Sitharaman also took stock of Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), under which a total of 82,660 claims of Rs 1,629 crore have been paid as on May 31, 2021.

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Yamuna International Airport secures financing from SBI for development of Noida Airport

Christoph Schnellmann, the Chief Executive Officer of Yamuna International Airport Private Limited said, “We are extremely delighted to partner with the State Bank of India, the country’s largest bank, for financing the development of the Noida International Airport. The entire loan of Rs 3725 crore has been underwritten by SBI on a door-to-door loan tenor of 20 years. We look forward to working closely with SBI to develop NIA as a world-class airport in India. The project will not only boost the Indian economy but will also help in employment generation in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi NCR region”.

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Children can’t be vaccinated currently, trials on below 18 underway: Centre to Delhi HC

The Centre submitted affidavits saying, “The Companies manufacturing COVID-19 vaccination in India have given only “Emergency Use Authorization for vaccinating people of 18 years age and above, therefore, COVID vaccines are not recommended for persons/children less than 18 years of age. This is also because of the fact that the clinical trial group during phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3 did not cover the children below 18 years of age.”

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“Epidemiologists have made very clear the third wave of COVID-19 is inevitable in India”

Third wave of COVID-19 is inevitable and is likely to start from September-October, so the country should vaccinate as many people as possible.
”But in the second wave, the virus had a different characteristic which resulted in an indirect attack on lungs in a big way, which resulted in a large number of people demanding oxygen at a very early stage of infection.

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Decline in water availability due to increase in human, cattle population: Javadekar

”India has only four per cent water share of the world’s fresh rainwater resources. So, there is a basic necessity to save, reuse and repurpose. When India became independent, the availability of water was 5,000 litres per capita now it has become 1,100 litres. There is a basic decline in the availability of water due to human and cattle population growth,” he said.

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India’s vaccine inequity worsens as countryside languishes

In 114 of India’s least developed districts – collectively home to about 176 million people – authorities have administered just 23 million doses in total.

That’s the same number of doses as have been administered across nine major cities — New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Thane and Nagpur — which combined have half the population.

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