Air India | Representative image Two aborted missions, three different ministers, multiple rule changes, and two decades later, Indian taxpayers will no longer have to pay Rs 20 crore per day to keep the loss-making Air India flying. While opposition Congress expectedly attacked the decision as selling the family silver, DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said what Tata is getting is not a cash cow but an airline that is bleeding where money needs to be pumped in to refurbish obsolete aircraft and dust up strangled ones while being unable to touch any employee for one year and only be able to resize staff after paying a VRS. ''It won't be a very easy task there. The only advantage is they (the new Air India owner) are paying the price which they think they can manage. They are not taking the excessive debt accumulated to fund years of losses. We are continuing it as an ongoing concern... This process has also saved a huge amount of taxpayers money going forward,'' Pandey …
Fuel prices surge again in India
- A + A NEW DELHI (Oct 17): Petrol and diesel prices rose to their highest levels in India for the fourth straight day on Sunday. The fresh price hike pushed the rate of petrol in India's capital New Delhi to Indian Rupees (INR) 105.84 (US$1.41) per litre and diesel to INR 94.57 (US$1.26) a litre. In India's financial capital, Mumbai, a litre of petrol costs INR 111.77 (US$1.49) and diesel is INR 102.52 (US$1.37) per litre, reported Xinhua News Agency . On Tuesday and Wednesday, there was no change in the fuel rates. Petrol price in most of the country is already above the 100-Indian-rupees-per-litre mark, however, diesel rates also have crossed 100 mark level in a dozen states. In the eastern metropolitan city of Kolkata, petrol costs INR 106.43 (US$1.42) a litre, and diesel is retailing at INR 97.68 (US$1.30) a litre. In the southern metropolitan city of Chennai, petrol is priced at INR 103.01 (US$1.37) a litre, while diesel per litre costs INR 98.92 …
COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker: Over 30 lakh doses given on October 14
Since the beginning of the country's vaccination drive, 69.26 crore people have received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine, and 27.88 crore are fully vaccinated. (Representative image) India administered more than 30.26 lakh COVID-19 vaccine doses on October 14, taking the total number of jabs past 97.14 crore, according to the Union Health Ministry. On the 272nd day of the vaccination drive, 13.67 lakh individuals received their first shot and 16.58 lakh their second dose. Since the beginning of the country's vaccination drive, 69.26 crore people have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and 27.88 crore are fully vaccinated. After a slow start, India's vaccination drive picked up in the last few weeks. It took the country 85 days to give the first 10 crore doses, 45 days for the next 10 crore and 29 days to reach the 30-crore mark. The country took 24 days to reach 40 crore and 20 days to cross 50 crore doses on August 6. Let's check out some key …
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COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker: Over 8.36 lakh doses given on October 15
On the 273rd day of the COVID-19 vaccination drive, 3.39 lakh beneficiaries received their first shot and 4.96 lakh their second dose. (Representative image: Reuters) More than 8.36 lakh Covid-19 vaccine doses were administered in India on October 15, taking the total number of jabs to over 97.23 crore, the Union Health Ministry said. On the 273rd day of the vaccination drive, 3.39 lakh beneficiaries received their first shot and 4.96 lakh their second dose. After a slow start, India’s vaccination drive picked up over the last few weeks. It took the country 85 days to give the first 10 crore doses, the next 10 crore took 45 days and, in another 29 days, India touched the 30-crore mark. The country took 24 days to reach 40 crore and 20 days to cross 50-crore doses on August 6. By September 13, 75 crore COVID-19 vaccines had been given. The biggest jump, however, came on September 17, when more than 2.1 crore doses were given in a day. The government has revised the gap …
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Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker: Over 65.86 lakh doses given on Monday
A healthcare worker gives a dose of the COVISHIELD vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), manufactured by Serum Institute of India, to a farmer in his field, during a door-to-door vaccination drive in Banaskantha district in the western state of Gujarat. (Representative image: Reuters) More than 65.86 lakh Covid-19 vaccine doses were administered in India on October 11, taking the total number of jabs to over 95.89 crore, the Union Health Ministry said. On the 269th day of the vaccination drive, 33.63 lakh beneficiaries received their first shot and 32.22 lakh their second dose. After a slow start, India’s vaccination drive picked up over the last few weeks. It took the country 85 days to give the first 10 crore doses, the next 10 crore took 45 days and, in another 29 days, India touched the 30-crore mark. The country took 24 days to reach 40 crore and 20 days to cross 50-crore doses on August 6. By September 13, 75 crore COVID-19 vaccines had been given. The …
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How Rural India Bridged The Vaccination Gap With Urban Areas.
Nearly 60 to 70 percent of the population lives in rural parts of India. According to the 2011 census estimates, the population share of entirely urban, mixed, and rural districts was 13.6%, 13.6%, and 72.8%, respectively. Many predicted that the vaccination coverage would be biased toward urban areas as they tend to have better public health infrastructure, and access is relatively easier than rural communities. This observation was a cause of concern when India rolled out the COVID-19 vaccine. An analysis by Hindustan Times in June 2021 showed that someone living in urban India was nearly twice as likely to get a Covid-19 vaccine shot as people living in villages and semi-urban towns. This analysis proved true for the period between May to July 2021, wherein the vaccine coverage for rural communities was lower than that of urban counterparts. However, a refreshing trend in vaccination coverage has emerged, which enumerates higher vaccine coverage in the rural parts in the past …
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More than 20 dead after floods in south India
- A + A KOCHI, India (Oct 18): At least 22 people were killed after heavy rains lashed the south Indian state of Kerala over the weekend, officials said. Rainfall across the state led to flash floods and landslides in several areas, with the Indian army and navy called out to rescue residents. Some 13 of those were killed after a landslide in Kuttikkal village, officials and eyewitnesses said. "There were four landslides that happened there yesterday, the hill behind me, which brought water and other items downwards," a local resident told Reuters partner ANI on Sunday, standing in front of now-barren hillside. P.K. Jayasree, the top government official in Kottayam district where the landslide took place, said almost half of the casualties were from a single family. "One family completely lost six members," he said. Light rainfall across the state is expected to continue, although weather alerts in many areas had been withdrawn, the state's disaster …
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Karnataka Health Minister claims ‘modern Indian women’ are unwilling to give birth even after marriage
Karantaka Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar. Karnataka Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar on Sunday claimed that modern Indian women want to stay single, unwilling to give birth even after marriage and desire children by surrogacy. "Today, I am sorry to say this, lots of modern women in India want to stay single. Even if they get married, they don''t want to give birth. They want surrogacy. So there is a paradigm shift in our thinking, which is not good," he said during the World Mental Health Day at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences (NIMHANS). Lamenting the "western influence'' on Indian society, the Minister said people are not willing to let their parents be with them. "Unfortunately, today we are going in a western way. We don''t want our parents to live with us, forget about grandparents being with us," the minister said. Speaking about mental health in India, Sudhakar said every seventh Indian has some kind of mental issue, which could be …
Manmohan Singh’s daughter slams Mandaviya over pics taken in AIIMS despite family’s objection
Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s daughter Daman Singh accused Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya of getting a photographer against the wishes of the family when the minister had gone to enquire about former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s health. The 89-year-old former prime minister was admitted to a private ward of the cardio-neuro centre of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Wednesday and is under the care of a team of cardiologists led by Dr Nitish Naik, the doctor said. Daman Singh told ThePrint that her mother was very upset because a photographer had entered the room along with the minister. But when she insisted that the photographer leave the room, "she was completely ignored.” "She was very upset. My parents are trying to cope in a difficult situation. They are elderly people. Not animals in a zoo," Daman Singh said. She added that her parents had expressly insisted that visitors be …
COVID-19 Vaccine Update: Covaxin yet to get DCGI’s nod for emergency use in children
If approved by the drugs regulator, Bharat Biotech's Covaxin will be the second COVID-19 vaccine after Zydus Cadila's needle-free ZyCoV-D to receive EUA for use in those below 18 years. Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin is yet to get approval by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for emergency use authorisation in children and adolescents in the two to 18 years age group, as it is seeking additional technical opinion on it, reported Hindustan Times citing sources. The vaccine received a recommendation Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on COVID-19 for granting emergency use authorisation earlier this week. “The drugs controller general of India (DCGI) is taking more technical opinion on vaccinating children even though the expert panel has recommended its use,” a senior official in the union health ministry told the publication. The official further noted, “We will have to be extremely careful when talking about COVID-19 vaccination in children as even the …