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India may allow smaller gap between Covishield doses sold privately: Report
Earlier this month, the high court in the southern state of Kerala ordered changes in the health ministry’s vaccine-booking platform to give people paying for vaccination this choice, which is already being offered to those flying abroad.
“Since the high court has given a judgement, it will have to be done,” said one of the sources. “For the government’s programme, the ideal gap remains 12 weeks.”
India’s first framework for air quality forecast, SAFAR, accepted globally: Project director Beig
“Now that India has its own air quality framework whose credibility is proven beyond doubt, we need to take its advantage to become self-sufficient in replicating in other cities as originally envisaged in the National Clean Air Programme plan document rather than borrowing foreign framework with a cost,” Dr Gufran Beig said.
Using this, all urban local bodies can issue timely health advisories to alert citizens about ‘bad air’ days, which will help save vulnerable groups from severe health impacts of air pollution, the senior scientist added.
U.S. VP Harris to announce $10 bln global fund to prepare for future pandemics
The new Global Health Security Financial Intermediary Fund will be created at the World Bank to coalesce resources for pandemic preparedness, the White House official said.
The Biden administration will also request an additional $850 million from the U.S. Congress for the fund, to build on the $630 million in such funding that was secured for fiscal year 2021.
Amazon spends Rs 8,546 cr in legal expenses during 2018-20 to maintain presence in India
Road length rises 17 pc to 6.39 mln km, registered vehicles 41pc in 2015-19
Law on population control will be brought ‘at right time’: UP CM
NGT directs Maharashtra to deposit Rs 1 crore as interim compensation for restoration of water quality near Trimbakeshwar
The bench was hearing an application filed by Kiran Ramdas Kamble and others seeking to take action for failure of the Trimbakeshwar Municipal Council and other concerned authorities of Maharashtra in preventing discharge of Municipal waste into the river which joins Godavari in violation of the judgement of the Supreme Court, in spite of at least four orders of NGT in the last two years and also general orders in other cases.
Expected Centre to transfer unutilised crowd sourced amount to rare diseases fund: HC
On March 23, the court had passed a slew of directions in connection with the treatment of persons with rare diseases, including a direction to notify the National Health Policy for Rare Diseases by March 31 and setting up a National Consortium for Research, Development and Therapeutics, a rare diseases committee at AIIMS and a fund for such ailments.
Gujarat, Kerala & TN top FSSAI food safety index for 2020-21
The index ranks states on five parameters of food safety: human resources and institutional data, compliance, food testing facility, training and capacity building besides consumer empowerment.
Among small states, Goa came first followed by Meghalaya and Manipur. Among union territories, Jammu and Kashmir, Andaman and Nicobar Island and Delhi secured the top three positions on the index.
UN climate talks: Faint progress on money, none on pollution
World leaders made “faint signs of progress” on the financial end of fighting climate change in a special United Nations feet-to-the-fire meeting Monday, but they didn’t commit to more crucial cuts in emissions of the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming.In the meeting, vulnerable countries such as the Marshall Islands and the Maldives that are “staring down the barrel” of climate change were “pleading with the developed world to step up to the plate” to provide needed money for them to cope with warming’s impacts, said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who hosted the meeting with Guterres.
Investment consultants advising $10 trln in assets launch climate initiative
“The global transition to a net zero economy means asset owners have to develop their understanding of climate risks, think about changing pathways for their assets and exercise their stewardship rights,” said Luba Nikulina, global head of research at Willis Towers Watson.
“Investment consultants play a vital role in supporting asset owners on this journey and helping them increase their level of climate ambition.”
Facebook spent over $13 bln on safety, security since 2016
Facebook played down the negative effects on young users of its Instagram app and had a weak response to alarms raised by employees over how the platform is used in developing countries by human traffickers, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing a review of internal company documents. read more
“In the past, we didn’t address safety and security challenges early enough in the product development process,” the company said in a blog post. “But we have fundamentally changed that approach.”
Biden sanctions cryptocurrency exchange over ransomware attacks
The Treasury Department accuses Suex OTC, S.R.O. of facilitating transactions involving illicit proceeds for at least eight ransomware variants, marking its first such move against a virtual currency exchange over ransomware activity.
Hackers use ransomware to take down systems that control everything from hospital billing to manufacturing. They stop only after receiving hefty payments, typically paid in cryptocurrency.
Attacks are increasing in scale, sophistication and scope, the Treasury said. In 2020 ransomware payments reached over $400 million, more than four times the level in 2019, Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber, told reporters on the call.
French company Carmat announces first implant of its artificial heart in a woman
“This third implant in the U.S. was a landmark event not only because it allowed us to finalize the enrollment of the first cohort of patients of the EFS (early feasibility study), but very importantly because it is the first time ever that our device has helped a woman suffering from heart failure,” Carmat CEO Stephane Piat said in a statement.
India: Muslims still have the highest birth rate of any of India’s major religious groups: Pew’s report
“Every religious group in the country has seen its fertility fall, including the majority Hindu population and Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain minority groups,” it said.
According to Pew, in India and elsewhere, education is a primary factor in how many children women tend to have. Other prosperity indicators – such as life expectancy and average levels of wealth – also frequently correlate with fertility measures: Women who have better access to schooling, jobs and health care tend to have fewer children, it said.
More companies pledge net-zero’ emissions to fight climate change, but what does that really mean?
Covid-19 has killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 flu
Before COVID-19, the 1918-19 flu was universally considered the worst pandemic disease in human history. Whether the current scourge ultimately proves deadlier is unclear.
In many ways, the 1918-19 flu — which was wrongly named Spanish flu because it first received widespread news coverage in Spain — was worse.