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Here is a masonry blog layout with no sidebarProgrammes tackling extreme poverty reach nearly 92 mln people
Currently an estimated 700 million people live in extreme poverty, meaning surviving on less than US$1.90 a day. “One of the most stubborn challenges we face in development is positively transforming the lives of the extreme poor and vulnerable – a problem exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Mari Pangestu, the World Bank’s managing director for Development Policy and Partnerships, said in a statement.
IMF lifts global growth forecast for 2021, still sees ‘exceptional uncertainty’
But it warned that the world economy continued to face “exceptional uncertainty” and new waves of COVID-19 infections and variants posed risks, and global activity would remain well below pre-COVID-19 projections made one year ago. IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said U.S. President Joe Biden’s pledge to fund the World Health Organization’s COVAX vaccine initiative marked “a very big step” to containing the pandemic and ensuring more equitable distribution of vaccines.
“Much more will be needed, because as we can see, given the mutating virus, that this is not a problem that’s going away anytime soon,” Gopinath told a news conference. “There is still a tremendous amount of uncertainty,” she told Reuters in a separate interview. “We know that the health crisis is not over until it’s over everywhere.”
Over 1.95 mn people vaccinated against Covid-19 in India: Health ministry
Brazil’s Bolsonaro gives nod to private sector buying COVID-19 shots, AstraZeneca balks
AstraZeneca, however, said in a statement on Tuesday that all of its vaccine supply “at this moment” is only available to governments and multilateral organizations around the world. “It is not possible to make vaccines available to the private sector,” it said. Several companies denied reports that they had joined the initiative, including hospital group DASA SA, which said in a statement it is seeking to understand the commercial availability of vaccines through its suppliers.
131 more COVID deaths, 13203 cases
The COVID-19 caseload rose to 1,06,67,736 with 13,203 more infections. There are 1,84,182 active cases, which is 1.73 per cent of the caseload and it remained below 2 lakh for the sixth consecutive day, according to the ministry data.
As many as 1,03,30,084 people have recuperated, taking the recovery rate to 96.83 per cent,.
From factory to faraway village: behind India’s mammoth vaccination drive
Tata in talks to launch Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in India
Tata Medical & Diagnostics could team up with the India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research to carry out clinical trials of Moderna’s vaccine candidate in India,
Data released in November from Moderna’s late-stage study showed it was 94.1% effective with no serious safety concerns. The shot was approved for use in the United States in December and in Europe earlier this month.
Climate change drives $268 bn global damage from 2020 natural disasters with 64% uninsured:Aon report
Job losses from virus four times as bad as 2009 global financial crisis: UN
Cairn Energy threatens to enforce arbitration award against Indian assets overseas
Cairn was awarded damages of over $1.2 billion plus interest and costs in a long drawn-out tussle over a tax dispute and the Indian government is now liable to make this payment. An Indian official, however, said at the time the government would likely challenge the order.
If India does not comply with the order it would be a violation of international rules on arbitral awards, commonly called the New York Convention, Cairn said in a letter addressed to the Indian High Commission in London.
IRDAI unveils `Standard Individual Immediate Annuity Product”, to be mandatorily offered by life insurers from Apr 1
The entry age for a customer to buy an annuity product is 40 years and maximum age is 80 years.The minium annuity amount under the proposed policy will be Rs. 1000 per month, Rs. 3000 per quarter, Rs. 6000 per half year and Rs. 12000 per annum.
Though pricing is left to the insurers, annuity rates should be derived based on actuarial principles and ensure that such annuity rates are fair and reasonable to customers.
Soon customers, needing pension products, could get an opportunity to buy guaranteed return products from the National Pension System (NPS) for building their retirement corpus. So far, the NPS has remained a market-linked pension scheme.
Delhi could be heading towards attaining ‘herd immunity’, indicates latest sero-survey
Herd immunity implies that in any set of people in a community, after becoming affected by the virus, a lot many of them become immune to it, on account of antibodies developed in response to it. And, hence, such people become a protective layer between the infected person and unaffected people, thereby breaking the chain of viral transmission.
Transport ministry approves “Green Tax’ for older vehicles from April 1 2022
The ministry said that the aim of the new proposal is to dissuade people from using vehicles which damage the environment, to motivate people to switch to newer, less-polluting vehicles and reduce pollution levels by making the polluter pay for pollution.
The minister also approved the policy of deregistration and scrapping of vehicles owned by government department and PSUs, which are more than 15 years in age.
India to impose permanent ban on 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok – Indian media
“The government is not satisfied with the response/explanation given by these companies. Hence, the ban for these 59 apps is permanent now,” a section of business media quoted a source familiar with the notices as saying. It said the notices were issued last week.
The ministry’s June order stated that the apps were “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”.
Covid-19: Unemployed supertankers are about to get junked on Asia’s beaches
While the vessel glut has really been in place since when Covid-19 caused oil demand to collapse early last year, it has until recently been masked by a huge chunk of the fleet storing crude that was previously surplus to requirements
The scrapping may not be enough to save the market in the coming months. The amount of oil being shipped at sea remains far below normal levels as OPEC and its allies continue to withhold huge volumes of production and vessels that were used as storage during the oil market’s mammoth 2020 glut are now coming back onto the market and looking for business.
US leading race in artificial intelligence, China rising: Survey
Google opening up its spaces in US to serve as mass COVID-19 vaccination sites: Sundar Pichai
“Today we’re announcing that we’ll be opening up Google spaces to serve as mass vaccination sites, committing more than USD 150 million to promote vaccine education and equitable distribution, and making it easier for you to find where and when to get a vaccine,” Pichai announced in a blog post on Monday.
“Searches for ‘vaccines near me’ have increased 5x since the beginning of the year and we want to make sure we’re providing timely and locally relevant answers,” he said.
Airlifted COVID vaccines to 9 countries, will gradually supply to WHO’s COVAX facility: India at UN
“We have already airlifted more than 6 million doses to nine countries in Phase-I as grant assistance. Contractual supplies to various countries are also being undertaken in a phased manner. We will also gradually supply to the COVAX facility of the WHO,” Naidu said, adding that India has also provided training to several partner countries to strengthen their clinical capabilities, as well as to enhance their capacities for vaccine administration.
“As the largest vaccine-producing country of the world, we are fulfilling our commitment to make our vaccine production and delivery capacity available for the benefit of the entire humanity,” Naidu said.