Galwan Valley clash: China must keep to its side of LAC, says govt. India on Thursday again accused the Chinese of crossing the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh on June 15.
It also asked Beijing to not take any unilateral action to alter the LAC, but said the two sides were in regular touch. Earlier in the day, China said the situation in the area was “generally stable and controllable”, but it stuck to its stated position that the violence on June 15 was caused by Indian frontline forces crossing the LAC. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in the violence in the valley on June 15.
There is as yet no confirmed figure on the Chinese deaths and injuries, but it has indicated that its troops also suffered casualties. Meanwhile, the Indian Army trashed reports claiming that a number of its soldiers went missing after the violent clashes with Chinese troops. “At the ground level the two sides have maintained communication at the commanders’ level. How healthcare became unaffordable for non-coronavirus patients in pandemic. Tanvi Vij, 22, has spinal muscular atrophy type II, a genetic disease that has left her completely immobile.
This year, her condition deteriorated so much that her family decided to buy a hoist that can help her get out of bed and get on to her wheelchair. But the government’s decision to impose a lockdown on account of Covid-19, and the cancellation of all flights, disrupted the family’s plans. Her father could not travel to Mumbai to meet the vendor and have the hoist customised for Tanvi and delivered to Delhi. This would have cost about Rs 60,000. Axis Bank's Pralay Mondal to join Fairfax-backed CSB Bank as President. Axis Bank's former executive director Pralay Mondal will join Fairfax-backed CSB Bank Ltd as President (Retail, SME, Operations and IT).
The veteran banker has around 30 years of banking experience across multiple business and functions, including retail assets, retail liabilities, business banking, products and technology. Before joining Axis Bank, Mondal was the Senior Group President and Head of Retail and Business Banking at Yes Bank. He was instrumental in setting up the entire retail franchise in that bank in a short period of time. Prior to that, he had a successful 12 years stint at HDFC Bank and was earlier associated with Standard Chartered Bank, Wipro InfoTech and Colgate Palmolive. "Mondal is a proven trailblazer who brings strong commercial banking expertise and experience to CSB Bank. Ladakh standoff: Boycott call may impact Chinese exports worth $17 bn. The nationwide clamour for boycott of Chinese goods is getting louder amid the Ladakh face-off, with traders urging the Centre to direct e-commerce firms to restrict the sale of items from the Dragon land.
Of the total import from China, retail traders sell goods worth around USD 17 billion, mostly comprising toys, household items, mobiles, electric and electronic goods and cosmetics among other things, which could possibly be replaced by Indian products, a national trading body said. "We, at 'Federation of All India Vyapar Mandal', are advising our members to clear their stocks of Chinese products and refrain from placing fresh orders.
We are also requesting the government to restrict e-commerce companies from selling Chinese products," V K Bansal, the association's general secretary, told PTI. PM calls all-party meet at 5 pm to discuss India-China border situation. The all-party meeting, called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the situation at the border areas with China, is scheduled to be held on Friday at 5 pm.
"In order to discuss the situation in the India-China border areas, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for an all-party meeting at 5 pm on June 19. Presidents of various political parties would take part in this virtual meeting," PMO had tweeted. The meeting was called after at least 20 Indian Army personnel, including a Colonel rank officer, had lost their lives in the violent face-off with Chinese troops in the Galwan valley area of Ladakh on June 15. India had said that the violent face-off happened in Ladakh's Galwan Valley as a result of an attempt by the Chinese troops to "unilaterally change" the status quo during de-escalation in Eastern Ladakh and the situation could have been avoided if the agreement at the higher level been scrupulously followed by the Chinese side.
"We have prayed for the welfare of humanity. Fighting coronavirus: What Is dexamethasone and how does it work? A drug named dexamethasone is the talk of the hour given recent claims that it can cut mortality in patients with severe forms of Covid-19 by a third.
The claims originated in a press release issued by scientists involved with the RECOVERY (short for ‘Randomised Evaluation of Covid-19 Therapy‘) trial, from the University of Oxford. They have said that the trial data suggests that dexamethasone cuts the risk of death by one-third in patients with ventilator support and by one-fifth in patients requiring oxygen support. This said, it’s important to note that their announcement was preliminary in nature: the study’s underlying data isn’t available yet for independent verification.
Dexamethasone is not a novel drug. India will be United Nations Security Council President for August, 2021. India, which has been elected as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, will serve as the president of the powerful 15-nation UN body for the month of August, 2021.
The presidency of the Council is held by each of the members in turn for one month, following the English alphabetical order of the member states' names. According to the information released by the office of the UN spokesperson, India will assume the rotating presidency of the Council for the month of August next year. How Trump's 'game-changer' drug is boosting nationalism in Brazil and India.
As Covid-19 spread around the world in early 2020, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), an anti-malaria drug touted as a miracle cure by the US president Donald Trump, triggered a global, polarised debate with significant geopolitical impacts.
The debate around HCQ in the United States was widely covered in international English-language media, but the controversy swirling around the same drug in Brazil and India — two countries where partisanship is equally as rife — has received less attention. The countries deployed drastically different responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. India declared a national lockdown on March 25, while Brazil never instituted one. In both countries, however, the HCQ debate quickly became a useful rhetorical lever to push nationalist positions. Even as HCQ's efficacy remained unproven, its use was aggressively touted by Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
Covid-19 crisis: Made-in-India remdesivir may come by end of June. Gilead’s remdesivir, the only drug with an emergency use authorisation to treat Covid-19 in the US, is expected to be widely available in the Indian market by the end of this month, sources in the know said.
The drug may reduce the average time of hospital stay for Covid patients and improve their recovery time. Currently, the drug is allowed for “restricted emergency use” on severely ill hospitalised Covid patients in India. The antiviral drug may cost around Rs 55,000 for an 11-dose course, or Rs 5,000 per injection — much less than the price of imports from Bangladesh. Domestic pharmaceutical companies claim India is fully vertically integrated to make remdesivir, and there is no reliance on China for any ingredient. After Gilead’s repurposed drug came into the limelight, the US firm signed licence agreements with Indian manufacturers around mid-May to make and sell the drug in India and other countries. Pakistan summons Indian diplomat over 'ceasefire violations' along LoC. Pakistan on Thursday summoned Indian Charge d'Affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia and registered its protest over the alleged ceasefire violations by the Indian forces along the Line of Control (LoC).
Director General (South Asia & SAARC) Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri registered a "strong protest over the ceasefire violations on June 17, 2020, the Foreign Office said in a statement. It said four persons were killed and one seriously injured due to "indiscriminate and unprovoked firing". The Indian forces along "the LoC and the Working Boundary (WB) have continuously been targeting civilian populated areas with artillery fire, heavy-caliber mortars and automatic weapons, it alleged. China passes draft of controversial Hong Kong national security law. China's ceremonial legislature on Thursday passed a draft of a national security bill for Hong Kong that has been strongly criticized as undermining faith in the semi-autonomous Chinese region's legal and political institutions.
The National People's Congress' Standing Committee reviewed the bill that covers four categories of crimes: succession; subversion of state power; local terrorist activities, and collaborating with foreign or external foreign forces to endanger national security. The congress moved to enact the legislation at the national level after Hong Kong's own Legislative Council was unable to do so because of strong local opposition. Critics say it could severely limit free speech and opposition political activity and legal experts say Beijing's legal justifications for acting are highly debatable. Microsoft to resume optional Windows 10 non-security updates from July. Microsoft has announced to resume optional non-security releases for Windows 10 and Windows Server next month. In March, the company paused these optional non-security update releases (also referred to as 'C' and 'D' releases) for all supported versions of Windows client and Windows Server, to give organisations time to focus on business continuity in the face of the global pandemic.
"Based on feedback and the ongoing stabilization of business continuity, we will resume optional releases in July of 2020 for Windows 10 and Windows Server, version 1809 and later," Microsoft said in a statement late Wednesday. ALSO READ: Microsoft Surface Duo smartphone with dual-screen design may launch in July "We are also instituting a few changes to simplify the update process and help you continue to stay current with Windows 10 and Windows Server," the company added. Govt to provide jobs to 6.7 mn migrant workers by pooling official projects. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the government will provide jobs to over 6 million migrant workers in six states by bringing together various government schemes. Based on data gathered from states, the government has estimated around 10 million workers have migrated back to their villages after the national lockdown was enforced in March-end to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The Centre will front-load Rs 50,000 crore of funds for the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan, which will focus on migrant workers who had returned to their villages after a nationwide lockdown was enforced in March-end to contain the spread of coronavirus. The scheme will be targeted towards workers with some skill sets and will cover 25 areas of work in 116 districts over the next 125 days. Gujarat working on single licence for trading of farm produce across APMCs. After permitting farmers to sell their produce outside of their respective market yards or Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) even weeks before central government issued ordinance on the mattee, government of Gujarat has now decided to issue unified licences to traders to trade in agri commodities in any APMC in the state. No license is needed for trading outside APMCs.
Under the current mechanism, traders need licences issued by each APMC in case they want to buy and sell farm produce on a particular platform. But once the new mechanism is in force--a new law may also be introduced for the purpose--traders will get a single licence that will permit them to trade in all state APMCs. Ladakh stand-off: Railways cancels Chinese contract for dedicated corridor. Amid the violent face-off between India and China at the Galwan Valley in the east of Ladakh, the Indian Railways has decided to cancel a key contract given to a Chinese company in the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC).
For this, the government has already approached the funding agency, World Bank, seeking termination of the contract citing poor progress. On Thursday, the national Transporter stated that a decision has been taken to cancel the Rs 471-crore signalling and telecommunication work for a stretch of 417 km in Kanpur-Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) section. The cost of the contract was funded through a loan from World Bank. In World Bank-funded projects, a nod from the global agency is needed for cancellation of any contract . ALSO READ: Latest News LIVE: Troops at Galwan were not unarmed, S Jaishankar to Rahul “In view of poor progress, it is decided by the DFCCIL to terminate this contract,” said a railways document, citing the reasons for cancellation.
Goods bought, sold overseas by domestic firms liable to GST in India: AAR. India will reduce imports, turn Covid-19 crisis into opportunity: PM Modi. Nepal parliament approves new map that lays claim to Indian territory. Nepal's upper house of Parliament on Thursday unanimously voted to amend the Constitution to update the country's new political map, laying claim over three strategically key areas along the border with it. India has already termed as "untenable" the "artificial enlargement" of territorial claims by Nepal after its lower house of Parliament on Saturday unanimously approved the new political map of the country featuring areas which India maintains belong to it.
Nepal last month released the revised political and administrative map of the country laying claim over the strategically key areas, more than six months after India published a new map in November 2019. The National Assembly, or the upper house of the Nepalese parliament, unanimously passed the Constitution amendment bill providing for the inclusion of the country's new political map in its national emblem. Delhi govt caps rate of Covid-19 test at Rs 2,400, says Deputy CM Sisodia. The Delhi government has decided to cap the rate of Covid-19 RT-PCR test at Rs 2,400, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Thursday.
Why race for coronavirus vaccine could leave developing countries behind. As the race for a vaccine against the new coronavirus intensifies, rich countries are rushing to place advance orders for the inevitably limited supply to guarantee their citizens get immunised first - leaving significant questions about whether developing countries will get any vaccine before the pandemic ends. Earlier this month, the UN, International Red Cross and Red Crescent, and others said it was a moral imperative that everyone have access to a "people's vaccine". Nation's conscience bruised, needs bipartisan consensus: Pranab Mukherjee. MMRDA hands over second phase of its Covid-19 hospital at BKC to BMC. Town planning authority MMRDA on Wednesday handed over the second phase of its Covid-19 hospital at BKC, comprising 1,000 beds, to local civic body BMC. The financial capital has been the worst-hit by the deadly coronavirus, reporting more than 60,000 infections and 3,170 fatalities so far.
The second phase of the hospital was completed in 17 days. After Galwan Valley clash, Indian Army, Navy, Air Force put on high alert. Front-line bases of the Indian army and the air force along the nearly 3,500 km de-facto border with China were Wednesday put on high alert in view of the worst border clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh that left 20 Army personnel dead, official sources said. Make full use of Covid-19 testing capacity, expand health infra: PM to CMs. Anti-China protests erupt across India to condemn death of Army personnel. Punjab to set up micro-containment zones in areas with five or more cases. World's largest coronavirus facility with 10,000 beds coming up in Delhi. Major-General level talks being held between India-China in Galwan valley. India can give befitting reply, if instigated: PM Modi on clash with China. Non-payment of salaries to medics a criminal offence: Govt to inform states. US says it's closely monitoring India-China border row, urges peace.
India may not alter cornavirus treatment protocol to add drug hailed in UK. IIT Hyderabad researcher develops AI-powered low-cost Covid-19 testing kit. Jio has a 'Sign in with Apple' like service but for Reliance employees only. Unspecified number of Chinese troops killed in clashes with India on LAC. Rajnath meets CDS, chiefs, EAM over developments in Galwan Valley, Ladakh. Shipping companies plan extra charters to bring 20,000 seafarers home. After violent face-off at LAC, China says Indian Army violated consensus. Covid-19 Factoid: Rajasthan has the best recovery rate among Indian states. UK begins trial of latest virus vaccine this week with 300 candidates.
India slams Pak for raising Kashmir at UNHRC, asks it to 'introspect' Odisha to conduct door-to-door screening to detect asymptomatic persons. Six Uttarakhand districts likely to receive heavy rain on June 18, 19: IMD. PM to meet heads of 21 states, UTs on June 16, June 17 over Covid-19 crisis. WHO waits for China to share info on new cases; notes 100,000 cases daily. Worrying trend: In last few years, hacking in India sees alarming growth. Nasa's Perseverance Mars mission: Sherlock's probe, & an Indian connection.
Patanjali finds coronavirus cure in Ayurveda; claims 100% favourable result. Bihar: Election for nine legislative council seats to be held on July 6. Use rapid test kits for testing in containment, healthcare areas: ICMR. Two Indian officials with Indian High Commission in Pakistan missing. Nepal's Upper House endorses proposal seeking to update country's new map. UP govt opts for 'attendance by selfie' to ensure teachers are at work. No power can break Indo-Nepal ties, will sort out misunderstanding: Rajnath. Covid-19 lockdown affected lives of 65% elderly due to job loss: Report. What is herd immunity? 10 most commonly used terms amid coronavirus scare. Find Covid-19 testing centres on Google Search, Assistant and Maps. Google's new rules clamp down on discriminatory housing, job and credit ads. Global refurbished phone market declines 1% in 2019, India sees 9% growth.
Govt mulls adding sudden loss of taste, smell as criteria for Covid-19 test. Substandard sanitisers available in mkt in fight against Covid-19: Research. India asks UK not to consider any asylum requests from Vijay Mallya. Covid-19 testing in Mumbai to take a hit after private players barred. Covid-19 testing in Mumbai to take a hit after private players barred. Govt pushes for minimal adjournments to reduce delay in commercial disputes. Delhi govt asks Covid-19 hospitals to make oxygen available on all beds. Airlines must extend credit period for two years: SC on cancelled tickets. Plan ready to douse Assam well fire, inquiry panel formed: Oil India. Trump considering suspending H1B visa over rising US unemployment: Report. Oil slides below $41 a barrel as US inventory rise revives glut worries. Global food emergency imminent; 49 mn may fall into extreme poverty: UN. From router to storage device: 5 things to make work-from-home functional.
You can now use IFCN's Covid-19 fact-checking chatbot on WhatsApp in Hindi. Semi-high speed rail corridor Silver Line gets Kerala cabinet nod. Delhi LG directs Chief Secretary to ensure all hospitals display availability of beds at entry point. Ladakh standoff: China, India reached positive consensus to ease situation. The office stays: How commercial real estate will survive Covid-19 crisis. Population of Gir lions rises by 29%; kudos to people of Gujarat, says PM. DGCA asks airlines to check door seals to avoid pressurisation snags. Solar power panels on bridge come crashing down after storm in Delhi. WHO calls for more research on asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19. Over 70,000 returned to India, 17k flew out on Vande Mission flights: Puri.
Govt starts skill mapping to help workers get opportunities closer home. Finance Ministry releases Rs 6,195 cr revenue deficit grant to 14 states. S&P retains India's sovereign rating at 'BBB-'; keeps outlook stable. Liquor becomes cheaper in Delhi as govt scraps 70% Special Corona Fee. Allow banks to release sanctioned loans to Amrapali homebuyers: SC to RBI. Singapore biotech firm Tychan to start human trials for Covid-19 treatment. ICMR sero-survey: Initial reports hint at widespread Covid-19 infection.
Slowdown blues: Post-lockdown, consumer confidence remains low. Cathay Pacific unveils $5-bn bailout plan amid coronavirus pandemic. Coronavirus may have been spreading in Wuhan in August: Harvard study. Explained: How Covid-19 pandemic upended 20 million lives in Mumbai. WHO clarifies remark on asymptomatic spread, calls it 'misunderstanding' Most Covid-19 smartphone apps don't promise privacy protection: Report. EPFO settles 3.6 mn claims of Rs 11,540 cr in April-May; 1.5 mn under PMGKY. Mumbai most expensive city in India for expats, ranks 19th in Asia: Survey. Gilead's remdesivir slows disease progression in monkeys with Covid-19. Data shows Covid-19 becoming more pervasive even as nation lifts curbs.
Shramik Express demand down to 30 trains a day versus 255 in May.